Our 

Familiar  Devotions 

By 


SHIRLEY  C.  HUGHSON,  O.  H.  C. 


Contents 


I.  The  Lord’s  Prayer. 

II.  The  Gloria  Patri. 

III.  The  Te  Deum. 

IV.  The  Gloria  in  Excelsis. 

V.  The  Anima  Christi. 

VI.  The  Veni  Creator. 

VII.  The  Divine  Praises. 

VIII.  The  Angelus. 

IX.  The  Christmas  Crib. 

X.  The  Stations  of  the  Cross. 


West  Park,  N.  Y. 
HOLY  CROSS  PRESS 
1923 


Price  40  Cent* 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/ourfamiliardevotOOhugh 


Familiar  Devotions 


By 

Shirley  C.  Hughson,  O.  H.  C. 


West  Park,  N.  Y. 
HOLY  CROSS  PRESS 
1923 


NOTE. 


The  following  devotional  and  historical  sketches  are 
intended  as  an  aid  to  the  better  understanding  of  vari¬ 
ous  forms  of  prayer  and  praise  which  are  in  common 
use  amongst  devout  Christian  folk.  Most  of  them 
were  first  published  in  The  Holy  Cross  Magazine,  and 
the  all  too  kindly  appreciation  of  their  value  as  ex¬ 
pressed  by  certain  critics  emboldens  the  author  to 
put  them  into  this  more  permanent  form,  with  the 
hope  that  at  least  a  few  souls  may  thereby  be  stimu¬ 
lated  to  love  and  serve  our  Lord  to  better  purpose. 

S.  C.  H. 

Holy  Cross, 

Michaelmas,  1923. 


THE  LORD’S  PRAYER 

UR  Father,  who  art  in  Heaven, 
Hallowed  be  Thy  Name.  Thy  king¬ 
dom  come.  Thy  will  be  done  on 
earth,  As  it  is  in  Heaven.  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread.  And  forgive  us  our 
trespasses,  as  we  forgive  those  who  tres¬ 
pass  against  us.  And  lead  us  not  into 
temptation;  But  deliver  us  from  evil. 
Amen. 


2 


Our  Familiar  Devotions 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  LORD’S  PRAYER. 

CONSIDERING  that  the  author  of  the 
Lord’s  Prayer  is  no  other  than  Incar¬ 
nate  God  Himself,  it  can  be  no  source 
of  wonder  that  in  every  age  since  our 
Lord’s  Ascension  into  Heaven,  it  has  been  re¬ 
garded  by  all  Christians  as  the  first  and  great¬ 
est  of  Christian  devotions. 

The  Lord’s  Prayer  is  twice  recorded  in  the 
Gospels.  It  occurs  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  prefaced  by  the  words,  “After  this 
manner,  therefore,  pray  ye.”  In  this  instance, 
it  is  given  to  His  disciples  as  a  model  of 
prayer.  All  prayer,  in  order  to  be  acceptable 
with  God,  must  be  made  in  the  spirit  of  this 
perfect  prayer. 

The  second  occasion  is  recorded  by  St. 
Luke.  He  tells  us  in  his  eleventh  chapter 
that  our  Lord  was  praying  in  a  certain  place, 
and  that  when  He  concluded  His  prayers, 
one  of  His  disciples, — the  identity  of  this 


disciple  is  not  revealed, — said  to  Him,  “Lord, 
teach  us  to  pray.”  In  response  to  this  re¬ 
quest,  He  gave  them  this  greatest  of  all  forms 
and  patterns  of  prayer. 

On  the  latter  occasion,  it  was  given  to  the 
Twelve  Apostles.  The  disciples  mentioned  by 
St.  Matthew  in  his  account  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  were  part  of  the  general  company 
of  disciples  who  followed  Him,  and  not  neces¬ 
sarily  the  Twelve,  as,  at  that  time,  the  latter 
had  not  received  their  special  call  to  the  aposto- 
late.  (See  St.  Luke  6:13-16). 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  our  Lord  taught  this 
prayer  to  many  groups  of  persons  on  many  oc¬ 
casions.  It  presented  the  great  principle  of 
Christian  prayer,  and  He  was  almost  sure  to 
have  repeated  it  many  times  in  his  continual 
work  of  teaching. 

The  Lord’s  Prayer  is  divided  into  three  parts. 
First,  the  address  to  the  heavenly  Father.  Sec¬ 
ond,  the  three  petitions  for  the  exaltation  of 
God  and  His  kingdom;  and  third,  four  peti¬ 
tions  covering  all  the  temporal  and  spiritual  needs 
of  man. 

Rev.  Vernon  Staley  in  his  book  The  Catholic 
Religion ,  gives  an  analysis  of  the  seven  petitions 
of  the  Lord’s  Prayer  in  a  form  which  is  well 
worth  remembering. 


4 


God's  Glory. 


Man’s  Needs. 


We  pray  for : 

1.  Reverence. 

2.  Loyalty. 

3.  Obedience. 


We  pray  for : 

4.  Food. 

5-  Forgiveness. 

6.  Guidance. 

7.  Deliverance. 


This  division  is  the  natural  one.  The 
Prayer  begins  with  the  simple,  but  sublime 
words,  Our  Father ,  Who  art  in  Heaven, —  an  ad¬ 
dress  which  no  Jew  under  the  Old  Testament 
dispensation  would  have  dared  to  have  offered 
to  God.  The  right  to  claim  God  as  Our  Father 
came  only  through  the  Incarnation.  When 
God,  the  eternal  Son,  became  our  brother-Man 
then  His  Father  became  our  Father  through 
a  new  relationship  which  could  not  have  existed 
before. 

And  this  address  not  only  taught,  as  had 
never  been  taught  before,  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  but  it  gave  a  new  and  startling  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  From  the 
address  on  through  the  last  petition,  the  plural 
form  is  used.  I  cannot  call  upon  Him  save  in 
words  which  refer  directly  to  the  family  of 
God.  I  can  ask  nothing  for  myself  without 
making  a  prayer  for  all  my  brethren  of  the  hu¬ 
man  race.  It  is  always  our,  never  my. 

There  has  long  been  a  question  as  to  the  force 
of  the  words  On  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven.  Do 


they  qualify  only  the  petition,  Thy  will  be  done, 
or  all  of  the  preceding  petitions  ?  The  text  of  the 
Gospel  gives  no  clue,  but  some  of  the  best  devo¬ 
tional  authorities  insist  that  it  should  be  under¬ 
stood  as  governing  all  that  goes  before;  that  the 
petitions  are:  Hallowed  be  Thy  Name  on  earth  as 
it  is  in  Heaven;  Thy  kingdom  come  on  earth  as  it 
is  in  Heaven;  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it 
is  in  Heaven. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  original  inten¬ 
tion,  certainly  this  understanding  of  the  force 
of  the  phrase  gives  the  Prayer  a  great  richness 
and  significance;  and,  in  any  case,  such  a  devo¬ 
tional  accommodation  of  the  language  is  entirely 
legitimate. 

Having  first  prayed  for  the  increase  of  the 
divine  honour,  we  go  on  to  pray  for  the  things  we 
need.  A  similar  question  to  that  which  we  have 
mentioned  above,  has  been  raised  regarding  the 
Doxology,  For  Thine  is  the  Kingdom,  etc which 
concludes  our  liturgical  form  of  the  Prayer.  Is 
it  intended  only  as  a  general  Doxology,  or  should 
it  be  taken  as  qualifying  each  particular  petition? 

Again,  the  text  of  the  Prayer  affords  no  help. 
In  fact,  there  is  a  possibility  that  this  Doxology  is 
of  late  origin,  and  was  not  a  part  of  the  original 
Prayer.  But  what  has  been  said  of  the  other 
question  is  true  in  regard  to  this.  Devotionally, 
it  is  an  enrichment  to  recite  each  petition  in  con- 


6 


nection  with  the  Doxology ;  as,  for  example,  Hal¬ 
lowed  be  Thy  Name, — for  Thine  is  the  Kingdom , 
and  the  power  and  the  glory,  forever  and  ever. 
Amen.  And  so  on  with  every  other  petition. 

Apparently,  from  the  beginning,  the  Church 
has  interpreted  our  Lord's  words,  “When  ye  pray, 
say,"  as  a  command.  In  every  primitive  Euchar¬ 
istic  Office,  with  the  one  exception  of  the  ancient 
Roman  Liturgy,  the  Lord's  Prayer  followed  im¬ 
mediately  after  the  prayer  of  consecration  be¬ 
fore  the  Communion.  So  invariable  was  this 
custom,  and  so  ancient,  that  St.  Jerome,  who  wrote 
about  A.D.  400  attributes  it  to  the  personal  com¬ 
mand  of  our  Lord  Himself;  and  some  of  the 
ancient  authors  erroneously  regarded  its  use  as 
necessary  for  the  consecration  of  the  bread  and 
wine.  It  was  so  intimately  associated  with  the 
consecration  of  the  Eucharist,  however,  that  Pope 
Leo  VI,  in  the  ninth  century,  forbade  it  to  be 
used  in  blessing  ordinary  food  in  grace  said  at 
meals. 

In  practically  every  ancient  Liturgy,  the  Lord’s 
Prayer  was  introduced  by  a  preface.  Some  of 
these  were  of  great  dignity  and  beauty.  The  one 
in  the  ancient  Liturgy  of  Jerusalem,  known  as  that 
of  St.  James,  is  as  follows :  “And  deign  that  we, 
O  merciful  Lord,  with  boldness,  uncondemned, 
with  a  pure  heart,  a  contrite  soul,  with  counte¬ 
nance  unashamed,  and  with  sanctified  lips,  may 


7 


dare  to  call  upon  Thee,  the  holy  God,  the  Father 
in  the  Heavens,  and  to  say:  Our  Father/'’  etc. 

Through  the  centuries,  the  method  of  publicly 
reciting  the  Lord’s  Prayer  varied  with  various 
times  and  places.  In  the  western  Church,  the 
priest  for  the  most  part,  said  the  Prayer  alone, 
or  only  with  certain  responses  on  the  part  of  the 
people;  while  in  the  eastern  Church  it  was  said 
all  together,  as  is  our  present  custom  except  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Liturgy. 

The1  Mozarabic  Liturgy  provided  a  litany-like 
use  of  it,  which  must  have  been  impressive,  and 
must  also  have  contributed  greatly  to  the  reality 
of  the  petitions.  At  the  end  of  each  of  the  first 
three  petitions,  the  minister  paused,  and  the  people 
responded  with  an  Amen.  After  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread,  the  congregation  responded, 
"‘For  Thou  art  God.”  The  two  petitions  follow¬ 
ing  this  were  responded  to  with  Amen,  and  after 
Lead  us  not  into  temptation ,  the  people  concluded 
the  Prayer  with,  But  deliver  us  from  evil. 

The  Revised  Version  translates  the  last  sentence, 
Deliver  us  from  the  Evil  One.  This  rendering  is 
based  on  very  ancient  authority,  and  it  is  unfor¬ 
tunate  that  it  has  not  been  adopted  in  our  Prayer 
Book.  In  most  of  the  old  Liturgies  the  Lord’s 
Prayer  is  not  only  preceded  by  a  preface,  as 
noted  above,  but  the  last  two  petitions  are  ex¬ 
panded  into  a  further  prayer,  which  is  called  the 


8 


Embolis.  In  the  old  Liturgy  of  Jerusalem  the 
embolis  makes  it  clear  that  the  evil  from  which 
we  pray  to  be  delivered  is  none  other  than  the 
personal  power  of  Satan.  It  reads  “And  lead 
us  not  into  temptation,  O  Lord,  the  Lord  of 
Hosts,  who  knowest  our  infirmity;  but  deliver  us 
from  the  evil  one  and  his  works,  and  from  every 
assault  and  wile  of  his,  for  the  sake  of  Thy  Holy 
Name,  which  is  called  upon  our  lowliness/’ 

Since  the  Lord’s  Prayer  is  the  all-inclusive 
prayer,  comprehending  every  possible  honour 
to  God,  and  petitioning  for  every  possible  hu¬ 
man  need,  it  is  customary  to  use  it  as  a  general 
act  of  praise  and  intercession. 

For  example,  when  one  says  it  as  an  act  of 
intercession  for  the  conversion  of  a  certain  soul 
the  first  three  petitions  become  a  prayer  that 
by  this  conversion  God’s  Name  may  be  hal¬ 
lowed  amongst  men ;  that  His  Kingdom  may 
come  into  the  heart  of  him  for  whom  we  are 
praying;  and  that  this  soul  may  do  the  divine 
will  as  it  is  done  in  Heaven. 

In  the  last  four  petitions,  we  pray  that  its 
every  need,  spiritual  and  temporal,  may  be 
filled ;  that  it  may  forgive  and  be  forgiven ;  and 
that,  protected  from  fatal  temptation,  it  may 
be  delivered  from  all  evil. 

The  petitions  may  be  used  singly,  or  in 
groups,  as  the  need  or  devotion  of  each  soul 


9 


may  suggest.  This  has  been  the  custom 
amongst  devout  folk  from  time  immemorial. 

A  touching  memory  from  the  life  of  the 
great  Archbishop  Gray  of  Capetown  illustrates 
the  strength  and  consolation  that  the  servants 
of  God  have  ever  been  able  to  gain  from  the 
use  of  this  great  devotion.  At  a  time  when 
he  was  enduring  persecution  for  the  faith,  with 
apparently  everything  against  him,  and  his 
Church  rent  in  twain,  on  a  lonely  journey 
across  the  veldt,  hundreds  of  miles  from  home, 
he  wrote  in  his  diary,  “I  find  infinite  comfort 
in  repeating  the  first  three  petitions  of  the 
Lord’s  Prayer.” 

Many  admirable  books  have  been  published 
explaining  the  petitions  of  the  Our  Father,  and 
there  is  not  room  in  this  brief  treatise  to  give 
more  than  a  brief  suggestion  of  what  this  all- 
comprehensive  praver  means  when  offered  to 
God. 

Our  Father  zvho  art  in  Heaven. 

There  is  not  one  of  the  forty-nine  prayers 
which  appear  in  the  Old  Testament  in  which  God 
is  addressed  as  “Our  Father.”  As  we  have  al¬ 
ready  thought,  when  the  Eternal  Son  became  Man 
He  made  himself  our  Brother,  and  by  so  doing 
worked  a  radical  change  in  the  relation  of  all 
men  to  his  Father.  This  throws  a  great  light  on 
the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation. 


10 


In  a  still  more  wonderful  and  enduring  way  do 
we  by  Baptism  into  the  Body  of  Christ  become  His 
brethren.  He  is  one  with  His  Father,  and  if 
we  are  one  with  Him,  we  are  united  to  the  very 
Being  of  God,  caught  up  into  the  bosom  of  the 
Holy  Trinity. 

Hallowed  be  Thy  Name . 

Every  loving  and  Christ-like  thought,  word,  or 
deed,  however  insignificant  men  may  count  it,  is 
a  hallowing  and  glorifying  of  the  Father’s  Name. 
This  petition  is  a  prayer  that  we  may  indeed  let 
our  light  shine  in  such  a  manner  before  men  that 
they,  seeing  our  works,  and  the  good  savour  of 
our  lives,  may  take  upon  themselves  the  same 
heavenly  service,  and  so  honour  our  Father. 

Thy  Kingdom  Come. 

Having  instructed  the  disciples  to  pray  for 
the  hallowing  of  God’s  Name,  our  Lord  next 
commands  them  to  pray  for  that  which  will  bring 
to  pass  the  final  and  perfect  hallowing  of  the  di¬ 
vine  Name.  Let  the  rule  and  kingdom  of  Christ 
be  firmly  established  in  all  hearts,  and  it  would 
not  be  possible  but  that  His  name  would  be  hon¬ 
oured  everywhere.  On  the  other  hand,  every  sin, 
great  or  small,  is  a  contending  against  the  coming 
of  the  kingdom. 

How  our  hearts  should  glow  at  the  thought 
that,  weak  and  even  wilful  sinners  as  we  too  often 
are,  our  Father  yet  condescends  to  give  us, 


11 


through  our  prayers  and  labours,  a  part  in  the 
raising  of  the  walls  of  “the  Kingdom  that  must 
be  built,”  making  us  co-workers  with  Himself 
in  the  creation  of  “the  Kingdom  which  shall  have 
no  end.”  It  was  said  that  St.  Teresa  could  never 
repeat  these  words  in  the  Nicene  Creed  without 
tears. 

Thy  zvill  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven. 

This  is  a  prayer  that  all  men  may  do  the  will 
of  God  even  as  it  is  done  by  the  angels  and 
saints  in  Heaven.  It  is  a  serious  matter  to  offer 
this  petition  with  pretended  earnestness,  and  then 
not  make  daily  a  strenuous  effort  to  do  what  con¬ 
science  tells  us  is  our  Father’s  will.  We  may  not 
always  succeed,  and  failure  does  not  necessarily 
mean  hypocrisy,  but  to  say  this  prayer  is  to  pledge 
ourselves  to  try  perseveringly,  and  to  accept  such 
helps  from  Him,  sacramental  and  otherwise,  as 
will  ensure  our  success  in  the  end. 

Give  ns  this  day  our  daily  bread. 

We  here  ask  God  to  give  us  all  things  needful 
for  both  body  and  soul, — spiritual  as  well  as  ma¬ 
terial  sustenance,  and  blessing.  The  word  Give 
expresses  our  dependence  on  Him.  Nor  do  we 
specify  what  our  needs  are.  Knowing  His  loving 
fatherly  care  for  us,  we  leave  Him  to  judge  what 
is  best  for  us. 


12 


Forgive  us  our  trespasses  as  we  forgive  those  who 

trespass  against  us. 

This  is  the  petition  to  which  a  condition  is  at¬ 
tached.  Without  forgiveness  of  our  sins,  there 
is  no  hope ;  and  we  are  taught  to  ask  God  to  for¬ 
give  us  only  in  the  same  manner  and  degree  that 
we  forgive  those  who  offend  us.  Charity  towards 
all  is  therefore  necessary  in  order  to  keep  this 
prayer  from  being  a  mockery  of  God,  and  a  con¬ 
demnation  of  ourselves.  In  using  it  we  are  ask¬ 
ing  God  not  to  forgive  us  unless  we  forgive 
others. 

Lead  us  not  into  temptation. 

This  is  not  a  prayer  for  deliverance  from  all 
temptation,  but  only  from  such  as  we  are  not 
able  to  bear.  Temptation  is  the  divinely  ap¬ 
pointed  mode  of  our  ordinary  Christian  warfare, 
and  there  can  be  no  crown  without  a  victory,  and 
victory  is  impossible  unless  there  is  a  battle.  This 
is  a  petition  that  in  our  particular  spiritual  diffi¬ 
culties  He  will  fulfill  His  promise,  and  not  allow 
us  to  be  tempted  above  that  we  are  able. 

But  deliver  us  from  evil. 

This  petition  is  to  be  considered  in  close  con¬ 
nection  with  the  preceding  one.  Some  commen¬ 
tators  take  the  two  sentences  as  constituting  a 
single  petition  in  which  we  pray  not  to  be  lead  into 
that  kind  of  temptation  which  will  bring  upon  us 
that  evil  which  will  hurt  the  soul. 


IS 


THE  GLORIA  PATRI 

GLORY  be  to  the  Father,  an'!  to  the 
Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost:  As  it 
was  in  the  beginning  is  now,  and  ever 
shall  be,  world  without  end.  Amen. 


14 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  GLORIA  PATRI. 

ITHOUT  doubt  next  to  the  Lord’s 
Prayer,  the  Gloria  Patri  is  the  most 
universal  devotion  of  the  Christian 
Church,  and  one  might  safely  say  the  most  im¬ 
portant.  There  is  no  office  of  the  Church,  nor 
has  there  been  since  primitive  days,  in  which 
in  some  form  this  devotion  does  not  occur. 

In  the  Divine  Office  it  is  repeated  again  and 
again.  No  psalm  is  said  without  it;  it  is 
placed  at  the  beginning  of  the  Prayer  Book  Of¬ 
fices  ;  it  finds  a  like  place  in  the  Litany,  and 
in  the  Eucharist  the  proclamation  of  the  Gos¬ 
pel  is  preceded  by  a  shortened  form  of  the 
Gloria,  which  the  people  use  as  an  exclamation 
of  praise  before  that  divine  Word  is  read. 

No  one  knows  when  the  Gloria  Patri  began 
to  be  used,  or  who  composed  it.  Its  form 
varied  slightly  through  the  earlier  ages  of  the 
Church,  but  when  the  great  Arian  heresy  arose 
in  the  fourth  century,  the  Church  seized  upon 
it  as  her  declaration  in  all  her  devotions,  of  the 
truth  that  the  Eternal  Son  of  God  was  in  all 
things  equal  to  the  Father. 


15 


It  was  in  those  dark  days  when  men's  hearts 
were  failing  them  for  fear,  and  had  such  a 
thing  been  possible,  it  seemed  that  the  gates 
of  hell  were  prevailing  against  the  Church,  that 
she  took  refuge  in  this  doxology,  and 
ordered  it  to  be  used  everywhere  as  a  protesta¬ 
tion  of  her  faith  in  the  Triune  God. 

Until  the  fourth  century  the  forms  of  the 
Gloria  varied.  In  some  parts  of  the  Church 
it  was  said,  “Glory  be  to  the  Father  by  the 
Son,”  and  in  others,  “Glory  be  to  the  Father 
in  the  Son.”  The  great  St.  Basil  who  died  in 
379  was  accused  of  introducing  a  novelty  when 
he  used  the  form  as  we  have  it  at  the  present 
day. 

In  defense,  however,  he  declared  that  all 
three  forms  were  ancient,  and  were  to  be 
used  in  the  Catholic  sense.  He  also  affirmed 
that  his  own  practice  was  the  same  as  that  of 
St-  Clement  of  Rome,  St.  Irenaeus,  Origen,  St. 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  and  others  of  the 
more  ancient  Fathers.  If  he  was  correct,  this 
takes  the  present  form  of  the  Gloria  Patri  back 
to  the  days  of  St.  Paul,  for  it  was  this  same 
Clement  whose  name  the  Apostle  declares  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  to  be  written  “in 
the  book  of  life.” 

It  was  the  second  part  of  the  Gloria  Patri, 
however,  that  was  introduced  especially  to  bul- 


16 


wark  the  Catholic  Religion  against  the  Arians, 
who  held  that  our  Lord  was  not  of  the  same 
substance  with  the  Father,  and  that  there  was 
a  time  when  He  did  not  exist. 

Just  when  the  second  clause  was  first  added, 
we  do  not  know.  It  was  first  enjoined  by 
Church  authority  (so  far  as  is  known)  at  the 
Council  of  Vaison,  a  town  of  Avignon  in 
France,  in  529.  This  Council  decreed  the  use 
of  the  words,  “As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is 
now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end/' 
that  is  to  say,  that  the  relation  of  the  three  Per¬ 
sons  of  the  Godhead  was  eternal. 

The  question  was  early  raised,  however,  as 
to  what  was  the  subject  of  the  verb  was.  It  is 
now  popularly  taken  that  the  word  Glory  is  the 
subject;  that  is,  that  the  glory  to  be  accorded 
the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  the 
same  now  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  and  will 
be  the  same  through  all  the  ages  of  eternity. 

But  the  Latin  word  erat  (for  the  Gloria  was 
originally  written  in  Latin)  can  be  translated  either 
He  was  or  it  was ,  and  there  is  good  authority 
for  thinking  that  originally  the  Son  was  meant 
to  be  the  subject  of  the  verb.  That  is,  “As  He, 
the  Son,  was  in  the  beginning,  (the  reference  here 
is  to  this  same  expression  in  St.  John  i.  i),  He 
is  now  and  He  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end.’’ 

As  this  section  of  the  Gloria  was  adopted  for 


17 


the  purpose  of  setting  forth  the  Faith  concerning 
the  position  of  God  the  Son  in  the  Godhead,  this 
would  seem  to  be  the  right  interpretation. 

This  view  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  during 
the  middle  ages  there  were  some  versions  of  the 
Gloria  Patri  in  use  in  the  vernacular  on  the  Con¬ 
tinent  which  so  translated  it.  For  example,  there 
was  an  old  German  form,  “Als  er  im  Anfang,” 
“As  He  was  in  the  beginning.’’  This  form  would 
make  the  Gloria  an  undoubted  denial  of  the  Arian 
heresy,  which  could  not  be  said  of  the  other 
forms. 

The  present  use  of  the  Gloria  in  the  Church 
services  was  a  slow  growth.  When  the  Gallic 
monk  Cassian  went  to  Egypt  in  390,  he  found  the 
desert  Fathers  using  the  then  form  of  the  Gloria 
at  the  end  of  all  psalms,  and  St.  Benedict  who 
died  about  542,  ordered  it  in  his  Holy  Rule  to 
be  so  used. 

The  Gloria  has  also  from  time  immemorial  been 
used  as  a  devotion  of  praise  by  itself.  In  the 
middle  ages  it  was  used  by  preachers  at  the  end 
of  their  sermons,  and  in  some  countries,  especially 
in  parts  of  Germany,  the  people  make  the  sign  of 
the  cross  on  repeating  the  first  half,  regarding  it 
as  a  declaration  of  their  Faith,  a  kind  of  Creed 
in  miniature. 

It  finds  a  place  in  nearly  all  the  great  Catholic 
Litanies.  It  is  an  essential  part  of  the  Rosary,  be- 


18 


ing  said  at  the  end  of  each  decade,  and  occurs 
at  the  opening  of  nearly  all  the  Breviary  Offices, 
and  at  many  other  places  in  them.  The  Church 
and  her  children  never  grow  weary  of  repeating 
with  filial  love  and  devotion  this  great  act  of  glory 
to  God. 

The  Gloria  being  a  joyful  doxology,  it  is,  by 
Catholic  custom,  omitted  during  the  last  three 
days  of  Holy  Week,  and  is  also  omitted  from  cer¬ 
tain  private  devotions  made  by  the  priest  at  the 
altar  from  Passion  Sunday  until  Easter.  It  is 
omitted  at  the  end  of  the  psalms  in  the  Office  of 
the  Dead,  in  the  latter  case  the  Requiem  Aeter- 
11am, — -“Grant  them,  O  I.o/d,  eternal  rest,  and  let 
perpetual  light  shine  upon  them,” — being  used 
in  its  stead. 

In  all  ages  since  its  use  began,  the  Gloria  Patri 
has  been  constantly  on  the  lips  of  the  Faithful 
as  an  act  of  devotion  to  God  with  various  inten¬ 
tions.  It  is  used  as  an  act  of  special  praise  in 
thanksgiving  to  God  for  particular  mercies ;  as  an 
act  of  reparation  for  dishonours  done  Him  by  sin  ; 
and  the  love  of  pious  souls  has  made  it  the 
basis  of  devotions  as  numberless  as  the  blessings 
for  which  men  are  called  upon  to  thank  and  praise 
God. 

One  stimulating  instance  of  how  it  may  be 
used  is  found  in  Dr.  Neale’s  Commentary  on 
the  Psalms.  Every  psalm  is  concluded  with  cer- 


19 


tain  devotions,  among  them  being  the  Gloria 
Patri  with  sentences  inserted,  setting  forth  spe¬ 
cial  points  from  the  psalm  which  suggest  praise 
and  thanksgiving.  For  example,  the  Commen¬ 
tary  on  Psalm  23  ends: 

“And  therefore :  Glory  be  to  the  Father,  who 
anoints  our  head  with  oil;  and  to  the  Son,  the 
Shepherd  of  His  people ;  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  provides  for  us  that  inebriating  chalice  which 
is  so  excellent.  As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is 
now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end.  Amen .” 

In  some  such  way,  each  one  of  us,  as  the  Spirit 
may  suggest  to  him,  can  use  this  great  devotion  of 
the  Church  as  a  vehicle  for  our  praise  and  love 
to  God.  As  we  come  and  go  about  the  daily 
routine  of  our  duty,  in  the  house,  the  shop,  the 
office,  on  the  street  or  in  the  fields, — wherever  we 
are,  whatever  wre  are  doing,  let  us  make  it  a  song 
in  the  heart,  this  ancient  doxology  to  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost.  God  has  said,  “he  that  giveth 
Me  thanks  and  praise  honoureth  Me.”  So  here  in 
this  simple  devotion  lies  our  constant  opportunity 
of  giving  honour  to  our  Creator,  our  Redeemer, 
our  Sanctifier. 

There  could  be  no  more  profitable  spiritual  ex¬ 
ercise  than  for  each  one  of  us  to  make  out  for 
himself  a  multifold  scheme  of  praise  and  thanks¬ 
giving,  covering  all  our  relations  in  life,  touching 
our  duties  and  privileges,  our  blessings,  temporal 


20 


and  spiritual  and  all  based  on  the  Gloria.  Let 
each  one  try  it.  Make  a  little  private  book  of  de¬ 
votions  on  this  plan,  and  the  blessings  of  God  will 
be  multiplied  upon  us  past  numbering  and  with 
ever  increasing  abundance. 

Glory  be  to  the  Father,  who  hath  loved  us 
with  an  everlasting  love;  and  to  the  Son,  who 
hath  visited  and  redeemed  His  people ;  and  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,  who  teacheth  us  the  deep  things 
of  God,  guiding  our  feet  into  the  way  of  peace. 
As  it  was  in  the  beginning ,  is  now,  and  ever  shall 
be,  world  without  end.  Amen. 


21 


TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS 

\X7 E  praise  Thee,  O  God:  we  acknowledge  Thee  to  be 
the  Lord. 

All  the  earth  doth  worship  Thee :  the  Father  everlaat- 
ing. 

To  Thee  all  angels  cry  aloud:  the  Heavens  and  all  the 
Powers  therein. 

To  thee  Cherubim  and  Seraphim:  continually  do  cry, 

Holy,  Holy,  Holy:  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth; 

Heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  the  Majesty:  of  thy 
glory. 

The  glorious  company  of  the  Apostles:  praise  thee. 

The  goodly  fellowship  of  the  Prophets :  praise  thee. 

The  noble  army  of  Martyrs:  praise  thee. 

The  holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world:  doth 
acknowledge  thee ; 

The  Father:  of  an  infinite  Majesty; 

Thine  adorable,  true :  and  only  Son ; 

Also  the  Holy  Ghost:  the  Comforter. 

Thou  art  the  King  of  Glory :  O  Christ. 

Thou  art  the  everlasting  Son:  of  the  Father 

When  thou  tookest  upon  thee  to  deliver  man:  thou 
didst  humble  thyself  to  be  born  of  a  Virgin. 

When  thou  hadst  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death : 
thou  didst  open  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  believers. 

Thou  sittest  at  the  right  hand  of  God:  in  the  glory 
of  the  Father. 

We  believe  that  thou  shalt  come:  to  be  our  Judge. 

We  therefore  pray  thee,  help  thy  servants:  whom  thou 
hast  redeemed  with  thy  precious  Blood. 

Make  them  to  be  numbered  with  thy  Saints:  in  glory 
everlasting. 

O  Lord,  save  thy  people:  and  bless  thine  heritage. 

Govern  them:  and  lift  them  up  for  ever. 

Day  by  day:  we  magnify  thee; 

And  we  worship  thy  Name:  ever,  world  without  end. 

Vouchsafe,  O  Lord:  to  keep  us  this  day  without  sin. 

O  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us:  have  mercy  upon  us. 

O  Lord,  let  thy  mercy  be  upon  us :  as  our  trust  is  in 
thee. 

O  Lord,  in  thee  have  I  trusted:  let  me  never  be  con¬ 
founded. 


22 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  TE  DEUM. 

O  sing  a  Te  Deum, — these  words  have 
become  a  proverb  in  the  language  of 
almost  every  country  in  Christendom. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  our  time  one  does  not 
commonly  hear  Te  Deuins  sung  as  special  acts 
of  joy  and  thanksgiving  to  God  for  blessing 
and  deliverance,  but  the  proverbial  saying  tes¬ 
tifies  to  the  instinct  of  Christian  people  every¬ 
where  to  find  in  this  great,  ancient  hymn,  the 
best  expression  of  gratitude  to  God  for  His 
manifold  mercies. 

In  the  Mattins  Office  of  the  Sarum  Breviary 
the  Te  Deum  appears  under  the  title,  “The  Song 
of  St.  Ambrose  and  St.  Augustine.”  This 
title  reflects  what  was  the  universal  belief  in 
the  middle  ages  concerning  this  hymn.  Even 
as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century,  Bishop 
Cosin,  who  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  final 
revision  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  pro¬ 
posed  to  retain  the  title,  “The  Hymn  of  St.  Am¬ 
brose.” 

The  belief  that  obtained  through  many  un¬ 
critical  centuries,  was  that  on  the  occasion  of 


23 


the  baptism  of  Augustine  at  Easter  385,  these 
two  servants  of  God,  as  the  regenerating  waters 
were  poured  upon  the  head  of  Augustine,  broke 
forth  antiphonally,  and  by  an  inspiration  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  composed  this  hymn  which 
through  all  the  succeeding  ages  has  been  the 
Church’s  great  act  of  praise  throughout  the 
western  world. 

No  one  any  longer  accepts  this  legend.  St. 
Augustine  in  his  Confessions  gives  an  account 
of  his  baptism,  and  had  it  been  true,  he  would 
almost  certainly  have  made  some  reference  to 
it.  Nor  is  the  story  heard  of  until  the  eighth 
century,  more  than  three  hundred  years  after 
St.  Augustine’s  death. 

Not  only  would  these  silences  show  it  highly 
improbable,  but  it  seems  fairly  certain  that  at 
least  some  parts  of  the  Te  Deum  ante-dated  St. 
Ambrose  and  St.  Augustine  by  more  than  a 
century.  In  a  work  entitled  De  Mortalitate , 
written  by  St.  Cyprian  of  Carthage  in  252  there 
occurs  a  passage  almost  identical  with  the 
seventh,  eighth  and  ninth  verses  of  the  hymn, 
— “the  glorious  company  of  the  Apostles  praise 
Thee,’’  etc. 

This  possible  reference  to  the  Te  Deum  (if 
it  be  such),  is  the  earliest  that  has  been  found 
in  Christian  literature.  The  question  here 
is  whether  the  words  of  St.  Cyprian  were  later 


24 


on  incorporated  into  the  hymn ;  or  whether  St. 
Cyprian  was  quoting  a  hymn  well  known  in 
his  time.  The  latter  would  seem  to  be  the 
more  natural  conclusion,  although  it  is  accepted 
bv  no  means  by  all  of  the  authorities. 

Some  ancient  writers  ascribe  the  authorship 
of  the  Te  Deum  to  St.  Hilary  of  Poictiers  (A. 
D.  355),  and  others  to  St.  Nicetas  of  Remesi- 
ana  (about  A.  D.  500).  The  late  Bishop  John 
Wordsworth  of  Salisbury,  a  man  of  vast  learn¬ 
ing  in  this  field,  thinks  a  “very  plausible"  case 
has  been  made  out  for  Nicetas,  and  Bishop 
Frere,  of  Truro,  perhaps  the  greatest  living 
liturgical  scholar  in  England,  definitely  accept 
this  claim.  St.  Nicetas  was  a  Bishop  in  Da¬ 
cia,  which  was  the  region  now  comprised  in 
Transylvania,  Moldavia,  Wallachia,  and  other 
parts  of  Hungary.  The  acceptance  of  his  claim 
is  based,  however,  on  much  conjecture,  and  not 
a  few  scholars  reject  it. 

In  no  event  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  any  one 
man  wrote  the  Te  Deum.  It  is  a  compila¬ 
tion.  The  authorities  are  agreed  that  the  first 
ten  verses  go  back  to  very  remote  times,  and 
Dr.  Swainson  in  his  article  in  The  Dictionary  of 
Christian  Antiquities ,  says  it  is  closely  connected 
with  the  Eucharistic  hymn  in  the  ancient  liturgy 
of  Jerusalem. 

He  also  calls  attention  to  the  interesting  cir- 


25 


cumstance  that  although  no  Greek  copy  of  the  Te 
Deum  has  ever  been  found,  important  portions  of 
it  are  from  Greek  and  Oriental  Christian  sources. 
Not  only  are  the  first  ten  verses  Greek  in  origin, 
but  the  three  which  follow  them,  and  which  are 
supposed  to  have  been  added  somewhat  later  as 
a  doxology  to  the  Holy  Trinity,  are  taken  from 
an  Alexandrine  morning  hymn,  as  are  also  verses 

24,  25,  and  26.  This  old  Greek  hymn  is  translated 
in  full  in  Blunt’s  Annotated  Book  of  Common 
Prayer. 

Verses  14  to  21  constitute  a  complete  hymn  to 
Christ  as  God.  Verses  22  and  23  are  from 
Psalm  28.  10;  verse  26  is  from  Psalm  123.  3,  and 
the  last  two  verses  are  based  upon  Psalm  22.  5  and 

25.  1. 

While  there  have  been  some  later  variations  of 
a  slight  nature  in  the  Te  Deum,  it  would  seem  to 
have  reached  substantially  its  present  form  by  the 
sixth  century,  and  to  have  been  generally  known 
and  used  through  the  western  Church.  St. 
Caesarius  of  Arles  was  the  first  to  refer  to  it 
by  its  present  title.  He  mentions  it  in  his  Rule 
for  monks,  which  he  wrote  in  502  at  Lerins,  an 
island  off  the  Mediterranean  coast  of  Gaul.  The 
Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  who  died  in  542,  also  men¬ 
tions  it,  and  references  to  it  are  common  after 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century. 

Translations  of  the  Te  Deum  in  England  go 


26 


back  to  the  eighth  century,  when  the  first  Anglo- 
Saxon  version,  so  far  as  is  known,  was  made. 
Many  others  were  made  during  the  centuries 
which  followed.  The  one  we  use  at  present  is 
substantially  the  same  as  appeared  in  the  Primer 
of  1546,  although  no  one  knows  who  trans¬ 
lated  it.  Bishop  Wordsworth  thinks  Cranmer 
was  responsible  for  it,  but  in  any  case,  while 
beautiful  in  the  flow  of  the  rhythm,  it  is  in¬ 
accurate. 

For  example,  the  very  first  sentence  is  not  a 
translation  of  the  Latin  at  all.  Te  Deurn  lauda- 
mus  cannot  be  rendered,  “We  praise  Thee,  O 
God,”  but  should  be,  “We  praise  Thee  Who  art 
God.”  This  expression  has  led  many  to  think 
that  the  first  ten  verses  are  a  hymn  to  Christ,  and 
there  is  much  to  be  said  for  this  contention.  If 
this  be  true,  the  opening  words  would  stand  as 
a  declaration  of  the  Deity  of  our  Lord  which 
was  denied  by  so  many  of  the  heresies  of  the 
early  centuries. 

Our  .American  version  of  the  hymn  contains  a 
most  unhappy  and  wholly  indefensible  change. 
From  the  earliest  ages,  the  Te  Deum  has  declared 
that  when  in  the  fulness  of  time  God  the  Son 
came  to  redeem  mankind,  He  “did  not  abhor  the 
Virgin’s  womb.”  Our  version  changed  this  to 
read,  “Thou  didst  humble  Thyself  to  be  born  of 
a  Virgin.” 


27 


Not  only  from  a  literary  standpoint  was  this 
change  ridiculous,  but  historically,  and  perhaps 
doctrinally,  it  cannot  be  justified.  The  reference 
in  the  Te  Deum  is  to  the  act  of  the  Incarnation. 
The  American  Book  shifts  it  to  the  birth  of  our 
Lord ;  and  in  so  doing  gives  a  grave  suggestion 
of  a  fundamental  error.  It  was  not  on  His  birth¬ 
day  that  our  Lord  began  His  mighty  work  of  re¬ 
demption,  but  at  the  moment  of  His  conception 
in  His  mother’s  womb.  The  change  comes  near 
expressing  a  form  of  Nestorianism. 

For  at  least  fourteen  centuries  the  Te  Deum 
has  been  sung  in  the  Morning  Office  of  the 
Church,  as  it  is  now  in  Morning  Prayer.  The 
Sarum  direction,  in  common  with  the  use  of  the 
Church  everywhere  else,  forbade  its  use  in  Ad¬ 
vent  and  Lent,  on  most  vigils  and  on  Ember 
Days.  This  was  because,  being  a  hymn  of  joy, 
it  was  not  suited  for  penitential  seasons. 

It  was  also  sung  on  occasions  of  public  rejoic¬ 
ing  and  thanksgiving,  like  the  election  of  a  Bis¬ 
hop,  the  coronation  of  a  King,  or  on  occasions 
of  deliverance  in  battle.  This  last  named  use 
of  it  is  appointed  in  the  American  Prayer  Book 
for  thanksgiving  after  a  victory  at  sea. 

When  used  in  this  way,  the  Te  Deum  is  re¬ 
garded  as  a  special  service  or  solemnity  by  it¬ 
self,  although  it  may  follow  the  Mass,  or  some 
other  Service,  in  which  case  the  vestments  are 


2S 


not  changed.  Where  it  does  not  follow  some 
other  service,  the  liturgical  colour  is  white,  un¬ 
less  it  be  in  connection  with  some  great  feast 
like  Whitsunday,  when  the  colour  for  the  day  is 
used. 

According  to  the  ancient  ritual,  it  is  customary 
to  bow  the  head  in  the  Te  Deum  at  the  words, 
“Holy,  Holy,  Holy,”  and  at,  “Thou  didst  not 
abhor  the  Virgin’s  womb.”  In  the  latter  in¬ 
stance,  it  is  intended  as  an  act  of  veneration  of 
the  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation.  Since  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Prayer  Book  has  eliminated  the  reference  to 
the  Incarnation,  this  act  would  be  without  point 
when  our  version  of  the  hymn  is  used. 

The  bowing  at  the  Thrice-Holy  is  an  act  of 
joining  the  angels  in  their  worship  when  we  use 
their  celestial  hymn,  as  described  in  Isaiah  6.  2-3, 
and  Rev.  4.  8.  The  rule  is  also  to  kneel  at  the 
verse,  “We  therefore  pray  Thee.” 

The  Te  Deum  has  suffered  much  at  the  hands 
of  pious  rhymesters.  With  few  exceptions  the 
metrical  versions  are  monuments  of  lamentable  lit¬ 
erary  and  devotional  taste.  The  least  objection¬ 
able  perhaps  are  those  of  Dryden  and  Charles 
Wesley.  Whatever  merit  there  may  be  in  any  of 
them  is  generally  in  proportion  to  the  distance 
they  wander  from  the  original  thought  of  the  Te 
Deum. 

It  is  interesting  that  while  the  Eastern  Church 


29 


does  not  officially  know  the  Te  Deum,  during  re¬ 
cent  times  it  has  become  in  translations  into  the 
vernacular  a  popular  devotion  throughout  Rus¬ 
sia  under  the  title  of  The  Hymn  of  St.  Ambrose. 

Whatever  may  be  its  origin  and  development,  or 
however  it  may  have  been  used  or  abused,  this 
“most  famous  non-biblical  hymn  of  the  Western 
Church,”  as  Bishop  Wordsworth  calls  it,  as  we 
have  it  today,  offers  to  the  faithful  an  expression 
of  praise  to  the  Holy  Trinity  splendid  in  its  ele¬ 
mental  simplicity  of  thought  and  language. 

Throughout  its  varied  structure  it  maintains  its 
character  as  a  hymn  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
show  the  authors  of  its  component  parts,  as  well 
as  the  compilers  of  the  present  form,  to  have  been 
possessed  of  a  devotional  genius  which  came  near 
to  supernatural  inspiration. 

Even  the  greatest  of  the  poets  have  never  been 
able  to  strike  a  note  that  could  awaken  a  response 
in  the  universal  heart.  Homer  and  Milton  do 
not  appeal  to  the  literary  instinct  of  the  China¬ 
man,  and  the  Chinese  epics  seem  grotesque  and 
out  of  proportion  to  western  taste.  The  divinely 
inspired  psalms  and  canticles  alone  appeal  to 
all,  and  the  Te  Deum  is  the  only  hymn,  not 
drawn  from  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  that  has 
made  a  like  place  for  itself  in  Christ’an 
hymnody.  The  Gloria  in  Excelsis  might  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  category,  but  its  posi- 


30 


tion  is  readily  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
so  large  a  part  of  it  is  taken  literally  from 
Holy  Scripture. 


31 


GLORIA  IN  EXCELSIS 

C’  LORY  be  to  God  on  high,  and  on 
l  earth  peace,  good  will  towards  men. 
We  praise  thee,  we  bless  thee,  we  wor¬ 
ship  thee,  we  glorify  thee,  we  give  thanks 
to  thee  for  thy  great  g!ory,  O  Lord  God, 
heavenly  King,  God  the  Father  Almighty. 

O  Lord,  the  only-begotten  Son,  Jesus 
Christ;  O  Lord  God,  Lamb  of  God,  Son 
of  the  Father,  that  takest  away  the  sins 
of  the  world,  have  mercy  upon  us.  Thou 
that  takest  away  the  sins  of  the  world, 
have  mercy  upon  us.  Thou  that  takest 
away  the  sins  of  the  world,  receive  our 
prayer.  Thou  that  sittest  at  the  right 
hand  of  God  the  Father,  have  mercy  upon 
us. 

For  thou  only  art  holy;  thou  only  art 
the  Lord;  thou  only,  O  Christ,  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,  art  most  high  in  the  glory 
of  God  the  Father.  Amen. 


32 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE  GLORIA  IN  EXCELSIS. 

URING  the  early  centuries  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  “private  psalms/’  as  they 
were  called,  were  common  in  Christian 
worsmp.  Little  by  little,  however,  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  Church  realized  that  God 
could  be  the  better  praised  in  the  words  in¬ 
spired  by  the  Holy  Ghost  for  that  purpose  in 
the  Sacred  Scriptures.  Only  three  of  these 
psalms  remain  to  us  today,  the  Te  Deum,  the 
Gloria  in  Excelsis,  and  the  so-called  Creed  of 
St.  Athanasius. 

Adrian  Fortescue  speaking  of  the  first  two, 
says,  “The  extraordinary  beauty  of  these  is  a 
witness  to  the  splendour  of  that  outburst  of 
lyric  poetry  among  Christians  during  the  time 
of  persecution”;  and  Canon  Newbolt  speaks  of 
the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  as  the  “hymn  begun  by 
the  angels  in  the  sky,  and  finished  by  the 
Church  on  earth.” 

The  Gloria  in  Excelsis  had  its  origin  in  the 
Greek  Church.  The  same  Alexandrian  morn¬ 
ing  hymn  which,  as  we  have  seen,  contributed 
much  to  the  Te  Deum,  contains,  with  some  ver- 


33 


bal  differences,  the  whole  of  the  Gloria  in  Ex- 
celsis  as  we  use  it  today.  This  hymn  is  used 
at  the  present  time  in  the  east  in  the  daily 
morning,  and  sometimes  evening,  Office. 

The  Gloria  in  Excelsis  is  also  contained  in 
Book  VII.  of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions 
which  was  compiled  about  350. 

The  first  use  of  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  in  the 
Mass  seems  to  have  arisen  with  the  insertion 
into  some  of  the  primitive  liturgies  of  the  hymn 
sung  by  the  angels  on  the  night  of  our  Lord’s 
birth,  as  recorded  in  St.  Luke  2.  14.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  that  undoubtedly  it  was  so 
employed  to  foreshadow  the  coming  of  the 
same  Christ  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  (See 
Scudamore,  Notitia  Eucharistica,  p.  691.) 

In  the  East  this  verse  is  found  in  numerous 
liturgies.  In  the  old  Spanish  Mozarabic  rite, 
it  was  said  except  in  Advent,  Lent  and  on  week¬ 
days,  which  is  the  present  universal  western  rule. 

Gradually  the  song  of  the  angels  was  expanded 
until  certainly  by  the  fourth  century,  it  had  as¬ 
sumed  substantially  its  present  form.  How  much 
earlier  it  was  completed,  it  is  not  possible  to  say, 
but  it  might  well  be  two  or  three  centuries  earlier. 
This  is  the  judgment  of  Bishop  Gibson  of  Glou¬ 
cester,  whose  article  on  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  in 
The  Church  Quarterly  Review  for  October,  1885, 
is  regarded  as  of  final  authority.  If  his  judg~ 


3  4 


ment  be  correct,  the  hymn  might  go  back  to  the 
days  of  the  personal  disciples  of  the  Apostles. 

In  the  early  Roman  Church  it  was  at  first  in¬ 
troduced  only  in  the  Christmas  Mass.  When 
this  was  done  is  not  known,  but  it  was  certainly 
very  early.  Bishop  Gibson  is  inclined  to  credit 
the  old  tradition  that  Telesphorus,  who  was 
Bishop  of  Rome  about  A.  D.  130,  ordered  the 
words  of  St.  Luke  2.  14  to  be  sung  in  the  Mass. 

In  the  year  104  Pliny  the  Younger,  one  of  the 
most  enlightened  men  of  his  time,  was  governor 
of  Pontus  and  Bithynia,  under  the  equally  just 
and  enlightened  Emperor  Trajan.  In  reporting 
to  the  Emperor  the  status  of  the  Christians  in  his 
provinces,  he  describes  their  custom  of  meeting 
together  before  sunrise  “to  sing  a  hymn  to  Christ 
as  God.”  There  is  no  way  of  proving  the  matter, 
but  many  scholars  have  thought  it  likely  that  this 
hymn  to  which  Pliny  refers  was  one  of  the  earliest 
forms  of  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis. 

The  suggestion  is  at  least  interesting,  and  it 
ties  up  with  another,  that  a  phrase  in  the  re¬ 
cently  discovered  Apology  of  Aristides, — “Every 
morning,  at  every  hour,  they  praise  and  glorify 
God  for  His  goodness  towards  them,” — relates  to 
the  words  of  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis,  “We  praise 
Thee,  we  glorify  Thee,  we  give  thanks  to  Thee  for 
Thy  great  glory.”  The  date  of  the  Apology  is 
somewhere  about  the  year  130  * 

*Cabrol.  Liturgical  Prayer ,  Its  History  and  Spirit,  p.  102. 

35 


Symmachus,  who  was  Bishop  of  Rome  in  498, 
ordered  the  full  hymn  to  be  sung  on  Sundays  and 
on  the  feasts  of  martyrs,  but,  according  to  the 
Roman  use,  it  could  only  be  said  by  a  Bishop, 
except  on  Easter  when  a  priest  wTas  permitted  to 
use  it.  It  was  not  until  the  twelfth  century  that 
the  restriction  on  its  use  by  priests  wras  removed. 
The  Rule  of  St.  Caesarius,  who  was  contempo¬ 
rary  with  St.  Symmachus,  ordered  it  to  be  sung 
at  Matins  on  Sundays.  Apparently  it  was  not 
said  by  the  people  until  later  centuries. 

The  words  immediately  following  the  passage 
from  the  Gospel,  seem  to  be  derived  from  the  lit¬ 
urgies  of  St.  Basil  and  St.  Chrysostom.  They  have 
the  words,  “We  hymn  Thee,  we  bless  Thee,  we 
give  thanks  to  Thee,  O  Lord ;  and  pray  to  Thee, 
our  God.”  This  was  sung  by  the  choir  between 
the  words  of  Institution  and  the  Invocation  of 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  repetition  of  the  wrords,  “Thou  that  takest 
away  the  sins  of  the  world,  have  mercy  upon  us,” 
involves  a  curious  bit  of  history.  It  does  not  be¬ 
long  to  any  ancient  form,  and  first  appeared  in 
the  English  Prayer  Book  in  1552  which,  as  will 
be  recalled,  was  prepared  under  the  influence  of 
foreign  protestant  sectarianism.  It  is  said  that 
all  the  English  priests  having  been  accustomed  to 
the  three-fold  “That  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the 
world”  in  the  Agnus  Dei  which  they  said  at  their 


36 


communion,  this  repetition  was  placed  in  the 
hymn  that  was  to  follow  the  Communion  to  make 
amends  for  the  omission  of  the  Agnus  Dei, 
Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  the  clause  was  a  new 
thing  in  the  hymn,  and  might  well  be  omitted  in 
order  to  bring  it  into  conformity  to  the  more 
ancient  use. 

The  expression,  “For  Thou  only  art  holy/’  etc., 
is  taken  from  the  response  in  the  ancient  liturgies 
to  the  proclamation  of  the  priest,  “Holy  things 
for  the  holy.”  In  many  of  the  liturgies  the 
people  responded,  as,  for  example,  in  the  rite  of 
St.  Chrysostom :  “One  holy,  one  Lord,  Jesus 
Christ,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father.”  The  ex¬ 
pression  “in  the  glory  of  God  the  Father,”  is,  of 
course,  a  quotation  from  Phil.  2.  n. 

The  Gloria  in  Excelsis  is  a  hymn  of  praise  to 
the  Holy  Trinity,  the  divine  Persons  being  men¬ 
tioned  in  their  proper  order.  The  reference  to 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  very  brief,  and  some  have 
thought  that  it  was  a  late  afterthought.  It  does 
not  appear  in  the  earlier  versions  such  as  that 
found  in  the  Apostolical  Constitutions.  It  will  be 
remembered,  however,  that  it  was  not  until  the 
fifth  century  that  direct  devotions  to  the  IToly 
Ghost  were  used,  and  by  that  time  the  Gloria  in 
Excelsis  wras  practically  complete  as  we  have  it 
now. 

There  were  many  ancient  Irish  manuscripts 


37 


of  the  hymn,  and  in  that  country  it  was  used  in 
the  evening  as  well  as  in  the  morning.  The 
American  Prayer  Book  as  revised  in  1892  pro¬ 
vided  a  like  evening  use  as  optional,  but  it  has 
practically  never  been  followed.  The  instinct 
of  the  Western  Church  for  sixteen  hundred  years 
reserves  it  for  use  at  the  Eucharist  as  a  hymn 
of  joyful  praise,  it  being  omitted,  or  a  more  ap¬ 
propriate  selection  substituted  for  it,  in  peni¬ 
tential  seasons. 

The  Gloria  in  Excelsis  is  known  in  the  east 
as  the  “Great  Doxology”  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  Gloria  Patri,  which  is  called  the  “Lesser  Dox- 
ology.”  It  has  never  like  the  Te  Deum  been 
used  as  a  form  of  thanksgiving  on  special  occa¬ 
sions,  but  for  many  centuries  it  has  been  em¬ 
ployed  as  a  theme  of  devotional  meditation,  and 
been  subjected  to  much  mystical  interpretation. 

Much  has  been  made,  for  instance,  in  a  very 
helpful  way,  of  the  sequence  of  the  verbs,  “We 
praise  Thee,  we  bless  Thee,  we  worship  Thee,  we 
glorify  Thee,”  showing  how  they  represent  the 
steps  in  the  ascent  of  the  soul  in  its  service  of 
God;  and  Canon  Newbolt  makes  a  beautiful 
comment  on  the  culmination  of  this  passage,  say¬ 
ing,  “There  are  few  words  so  expressive  of  the 
abandon  of  praise  as  these,  which,  forgetting  all 
our  needs,  and  all  our  blessings,  empty  themselves 
out  in  sheer  thanksgiving  to  God  for  being  what 


38 


He  is:  ‘We  give  thanks  to  Thee  for  Thy  great 
glory.’  ” 


ANIMA  CHRISTI 

SOUL  of  Christ,  sanctify  me! 

Body  of  Christ,  save  me! 

Blood  of  Christ,  inebriate  me! 

Water  from  the  sid  »  cf  Christ  wash  me! 
Passion  of  Christ,  strengthen  me! 

O  Good  Jesu,  hear  me! 

Within  Thy  wounds  hide  me! 

Suffer  me  not  to  be  separated  from  Thee! 
From  the  malicious  enemy  defend  me! 

In  the  hour  of  my  death,  call  me! 

And  bid  me  come  to  Thee, 

That  with  Thy  saints  I  may  praise  Thee, 
For  ever  and  ever.  Amen. 


40 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  ANIMA  CHRISTI. 

BOUT  six  hundred  years  aeo  there  ap¬ 
peared  almost  simultaneously  in  the  de¬ 
votional  literature  of  many  parts  of  the 
Christian  world  a  short  Latin  prayer,  beginning 
with  the  words  Anima  Christi , — Soul  of  Christ. 
From  these  opening  words  the  devotion  took  the 
title  by  which  it  has  since  been  known,  just  as  the 
Magnificat  and  Te  Deum,  and  other  familiar  devo¬ 
tions,  take  their  name  from  the  opening  words  of 
their  Latin  version. 

Where  the  Anima  Christi  came  from  no  one 
knows.  It  seems  to  have  been  first  heard  of  in 
Italy  in  1330,  when  it  was  especially  recommended 
to  the  use  of  the  Faithful  by  the  Pope  of  that 
time. 

Mr.  James  Mearns,  the  well  known  English 
hvmnologist,  discovered  it  in  an  old  manuscript 
in  the  British  Museum  which  is  of  the  date  of 
1370.  It  is  also  found  carved  on  one  of  the  gates 
of  the  Alcazar  in  Seville,  which  would  indicate 
that  it  was  known  in  Spain  in  the  days  of  Don 
Pedro  the  Cruel  who  died  in  1369.  There  is  also 
in  the  library  of  Avignon  in  France  an  old  prayer 


41 


book  which  belonged  to  Cardinal  Peter  de  Lux¬ 
embourg,  who  died  in  1387,  which  contains  this 
prayer. 

These  dates  are  important  because  in  many 
books  of  devotion  in  our  day,  the  prayer  is 
credited  to  St.  Ignatius  of  Loyola,  who  was  not 
born  until  1491.  This  mistake  was  brought 
about  by  his  frequent  use  of  it  in  his  famous 
Spiritual  Exercises.  But  the  fact  that  in  the 
first  edition  of  this  book  he  did  not  print  it  in  full 
but  took  it  for  granted  that  everyone  would  be 
familiar  with  it,  shows  that  in  his  day  it  had 
a  wide  currency.  Even  at  the  present  time,  it 
is  not  infrequently  entitled  “A  Prayer  of  St.  Ig¬ 
natius,”  although  it  can  be  his  prayer  only  in  the 
sense  that  he  used  it  habitually  and  recom¬ 
mended  its  constant  use  to  his  disciples.  The 
Roman  Breviary  includes  the  Anima  Christi 
among  the  authorized  and  indulgenced  prayers 
to  be  said  by  the  priest  after  celebrating  Mass. 
Until  1913  the  caption  in  some  authorized  edi¬ 
tions  described  it  as  ‘“Aspirations  of  St.  Ignatius,” 
but  this  was  eliminated  in  the  revision  of  the 
Breviary  under  the  late  Pope  Pius  X. 

There  are  a  few  variants  and  paraphrases  of 
the  Anima  Christi,  but  the  English  form  which 
is  almost  universal  is  the  following: 

Soul  of  Christ,  sanctify  me. 

Body  of  Christ,  save  me. 


42 


Blood  of  Christ,  inebriate  me. 

Water  from  the  side  of  Christ,  wash  me. 
Passion  of  Christ,  strengthen  me. 

O  Good  Jesu,  hear  me. 

Within  Thy  wounds  hide  me. 

Suffer  me  not  to  be  separated  from  Thee. 
From  the  malicious  enemy  defend  me. 

In  the  hour  of  my  death,  call  me, 

And  bid  me  come  to  Thee: 

That  with  Thy  Saints  I  may  praise  Thee 
Forever  and  ever.  Amen. 

The  standard  Latin  version,  of  which  this  is  a 
translation,  is  as  follows : 

Anima  Christi,  sanctifica  me. 

Corpus  Christi,  salva  me. 

Sanguis  Christi,  inebria  me. 

Aqua  lateris  Christi,  lava  me. 

Passio  Christi,  comforta  me. 

O  bone  Jesu,  exaudi  me. 

Intra  tua  vulnera  absconde  me. 

Ne  permittas  me  separari  a  te. 

Ab  hoste  maligno  defende  me. 

In  hora  mortis  meae  voca  me, 

Et  jube  me  venire  ad  te: 

Ut  cum  Sanctis  tuis  laudem  te, 

In  saecula  saeculorum.  Amen. 

We  have  seen  that  this  devotion  was  popular 
in  the  pre-Reformation  period.  After  the  Refor- 


43 


mation  it  seems  to  have  dropped  out  of  use 
amongst  Anglicans  for  three  hundred  years, 
although  on  the  Continent  its  use  in  metrical  ver¬ 
sions  among  the  Reformed  Churches  was  never 
abandoned. 

John  Wesley  in  1741  brought  out  a  version  be¬ 
ginning,  “Jesus,  thy  soul  renew  mine  own” ;  and 
there  was  also  a  version  in  an  English  Moravian 
hymn-book  published  in  1742. 

None  of  these,  however,  had  any  popularity. 
Its  real  devotional  use  began  with  the  Oxford 
Movement.  It  is  difficult  to  say  who  first  be¬ 
gan  the  restoration  of  its  actual  use  amongst  us. 
It  begins  to  appear  in  Anglican  books  of  devo¬ 
tion  late  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen¬ 
tury.  Dr.  Pusey,  always  foremost  in  such  work 
for  the  help  of  souls,  was  the  first,  so  far  as  the 
present  writer  can  learn,  to  publish  it  for  Angli¬ 
can  Catholics,  which  he  did  in  1845  in  his  redac¬ 
tion  of  Horst’s  Paradise  of  the  Christian  Soul. 
It  is  there  included  very  fitly  in  the  “Prayers  and 
Sentences  to  be  said  by  the  Bedside  of  the  Dy¬ 
ing.” 

Robert  Brett  also  included  it  in  his  Church¬ 
man  s  Guide  to  Faith  and  Piety  in  1862,  but  its 
great  popularity  is  doubtless  chiefly  due  to  its 
publication  in  The  Treasury  of  Devotion  in  1867. 
It  is  there  printed  in  a  prominent  manner,  occu¬ 
pying  an  entire  page,  so  as  to  make  it  typographic- 


44 


ally  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  features  of  the 
book.  At  the  present  day,  it  is  included  in  prac¬ 
tically  every  book  of  prayers  that  makes  any  pre¬ 
tension  to  be  Catholic. 

The  Anima  Christi  is  a  devotion  to  the  Sacred 
Humanity  of  our  Lord.  This  Humanity  is  the 
instrument  created  by  God  for  the  redemption 
of  mankind,  and  is  so  joined  to  His  Divinity  that 
the  latter  cannot  be  worshipped  in  Christ  with¬ 
out  at  the  same  time  the  former  being  worship¬ 
ped. 

The  Church,  therefore,  has  ever  encouraged 
devotion  to  our  Lord’s  Humanity,  and  in  the 
Anima  Christi  there  is  practically  the  same  appeal 
that  we  make  in  our  worship  of  the  Blessed  Sac¬ 
rament.  There  we  adore  His  Body  and  Blood 
which  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried ;  and  which 
is  now  risen,  ascended,  and  glorified  at  the  Fath¬ 
er’s  right  hand.  Here  in  virtue  of  the  same  Sa¬ 
cred  Humanity,  and  of  the  Passion  which  He 
endured  in  His  Body,  we  call  upon  Him  to  sanc¬ 
tify  us,  to  save  us,  to  embue  us  with  the  ex¬ 
hilarating  power  of  the  Precious  Blood,  to  wash 
us  from  every  sin,  to  strengthen  us  to  meet  every 
demand  the  Spirit  may  make  upon  us ;  and  so  to 
protect  us  here  that  in  the  hour  of  death  we  may 
be  counted  worthy  to  be  called  to  a  place  in  the 
company  of  His  Saints  and  Angels. 


45 


THE  VENI  CREATOR 

COME,  Holy  Ghost,  our  souls  inspire, 
And  lighten  with  celestial  fire. 

Thou  the  anointing  Spirit  art, 

Who  dost  thy  sevenfold  gifts  impart 
Thy  blessed  unction  from  above, 

Is  comfort,  life,  and  fire  of  love. 
Enable  with  perpetual  light 
The  dulness  of  our  blinded  sight. 
Anoint  and  cheer  our  soiled  face 
With  the  abundance  of  thy  grace. 

Keep  far  our  foes,  give  peace  at  home; 
Where  thou  art  guide,  no  ill  can  come. 
Teach  us  to  know  the  Father,  Son, 

And  thee,  of  both,  to  be  but  One; 

That,  through  the  ages  all  along, 

This  may  be  our  endless  song: 

Praise  to  thy  eternal  merit, 

Father,  Son  and  Hoiy  Spirit. 

Bishop  Cosin' s  Version. 


46 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  VENI  CREATOR. 

HE  great  hymn  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
“Come,  Holy  Ghost,  our  souls  inspire,” 
which  is  commonly  designated  by  its 
Latin  title,  Veni  Creator,  is  declared  by  the  dis¬ 
tinguished  liturgist,  Dr.  Frere,  to  be  “the  most 
famous  of  hymns.” 

One  is  startled  at  first  at  so  sweeping  a 
statement,  but  a  few  moments’  consideration 
shows  the  justification  of  this  verdict.  From 
about  the  year  1000  it  has  been  used  in  all  the 
Churches  of  the  west ;  and  the  manuscripts  of 
it  in  every  part  of  Europe  are  well  nigh  num¬ 
berless,  some  of  them  being  of  much  earlier 
date.  It  is  the  one  hymn  which  for  just  short 
of  one  thousand  years,  has  found  an  official 
place  in  the  liturgical  services  of  the  Church 
of  every  nation  of  western  Christendom. 

It  is  the  only  Latin  hymn  which  in  transla¬ 
tion  is  included  in  the  authorized  Prayer  Book 
of  the  Anglican  Church.  Its  use  as  an  invo¬ 
cation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  solemn  occasions 
such  as  the  election  and  consecration  of  Bis¬ 
hops,  the  ordination  of  priests,  the  dedication  of 


47 


churches,  and  the  meetings  of  Church  Councils, 
is  universal ;  in  addition  to  wh’ch  it  is  the  ordi¬ 
nary  invocation  of  the  Spirit  on  such  occa¬ 
sions  as  retreats,  etc.,  while  its  private  use  in 
connection  with  meditations  and  other  personal 
devotions,  has  endeared  it  to  all  Christians  who 
look  for  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
exercise  of  their  spiritual  life. 

The  question  naturally  arises,  Whence  comes 
this  great  hymn  whch  holy  men  of  so  many 
races  and  tongues,  through  so  many  ages,  have 
found  to  afford  the  highest  and  purest  expression 
of  their  spiritual  aspiration?  The  question  has 
been  asked  for  many  centuries,  and  there  is  no 
likelihood  that  it  will  ever  find  an  answer.  The 
widest  labour  of  research,  and  the  most  profound 
study,  have  been  devoted  to  its  solution,  but  to 
no  avail. 

For  a  long  time,  the  Veni  Creator  was  popu¬ 
larly  supposed  to  have  been  composed  by  the  Em¬ 
peror  Charlemagne,  but  as  Dr.  Julian,  the  great 
hymnologist,  remarks,  this  is  a  legend  which 
falls  to  pieces  as  soon  as  it  is  examined.  It  had 
its  origin  with  Ekkehard,  a  monk  of  St.  Gall,  the 
famous  Swiss  monastery.  About  the  year  1220 
he  wrote  a  life  of  Blessed  Notker  the  Stam¬ 
merer,  who  was  a  holy  religious  of  St.  Gall  about 
880,  and  who  is  perhaps  best  known  to  us  as 
the  reputed  (though  falsely  so)  author  of  the 


48 


antiphon  in  the  Burial  Office  which  begins,  “In 
the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  death.”  Notker 
left  a  gracious  memory  behind  him,  the  frag¬ 
rance  of  which  rejoiced  his  brethren  for  many 
centuries  after  he  had  been  gathered  to  his  fath¬ 
ers. 

Ekkehard's  story  is  so  full  of  sweetness  that 
it  is  worth  reproducing,  even  if  it  did  lay  the  foun¬ 
dation  of  a  wholly  false  legend  regarding  the 
Veni  Creator.  He  says  : 

“It  is  told  of  the  blessed  man  Notker  that 
one  day  when  he  went  through  the  dormitory 
he  hearkened,  for  there  was  a  mill  hard  by, 
whose  wheel  revolving  slowly  for  want  of  water, 
and  groaning,  seemed  to  give  forth  sounds  like 
unto  words.  And  the  man  of  God,  hearing, 
straightway  was  in  the  Spirit,  and  produced  the 
most  beautiful  hymn,  and  gave  utterance  to  the 
honey-sweet  melody  from  the  same  kind  Spirit 
which  possessed  him, — I  mean  the  Sequence  on 
the  Holy  Spirit  Sancti  Spiritus  ad  sit  nobis  gratia. 
And  when  he  had  completed  it,  he  sent  it  to  the 
Emperor  Charles  the  Great,  who  was  then  prob¬ 
ably  staying  at  Aachen.  And  the  same  Christian 
Emperor  sent  back  to  him  by  the  messenger  that 
with  which  the  same  Spirit  had  inspired  him, 
namely,  the  hymn,  Veni  Creator  Spiritus.” 

The  story  has  so  sweet  a  charm  that  for  cen¬ 
turies  it  was  accepted  as  authentic,  and  even  in 


49 


our  time  in  not  a  few  collections  the  great  Charles 
is  named  as  the  author  of  the  hymn.  The  diffi¬ 
culty  is  that  the  Emperor  died  some  twenty-six 
years  before  Notker  was  born,  and  since  Ekke- 
hard  is  the  only  authority  for  the  imperial  author¬ 
ship,  the  whole  legend  falls  to  pieces. 

The  Veni  Creator  has  also  been  assigned  to 
Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  and  to  St.  Ambrose,  but 
such  attributions  of  authorship  are  manifestly  ab¬ 
surd.  Rabanus  Maurus,  who  was  Abbot  of  Fulda 
and  Archbishop  of  Mayence  in  Germany  in 
the  ninth  century,  and  a  pupil  of  the  English  Al- 
cuin,  has  been  thought  by  some  excellent  author¬ 
ities  to  be  its  author.  He  was  perhaps  the  most 
learned  man  of  his  time,  and  much  has  been 
made  of  the  fact  that  one  chapter  of  his  great 
work  De  Universo  reads  as  though  it  might  be  a 
prose  paraphrase  of  the  Veni  Creator.  But 
Archbishop  Trench  has  disposed  of  this  argu¬ 
ment  by  showing  that  the  hymn  parallels  just  as 
closely  certain  passages  in  the  writings  of  St. 
Augustine  of  Hippo. 

A  better  case  can  doubtless  be  made  out  for 
Rabanus  than  for  almost  any  other  possible  au¬ 
thor.  He  was  quite  capable  of  composing  it,  as 
we  know  from  the  poems  of  high  excellence 
which  are  undoubtedly  his.  He  lived  in  a  time 
when  there  was  much  controversy  concerning 
the  Holy  Spirit,  being  in  his  early  prime  when 


50 


in  809  Charlemagne  called  the  Council  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  to  re-promulgate  the  Church’s  ancient 
teaching  concerning  the  procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

But  as  it  has  been  suggested  above,  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  the  authorship  is  involved  in  such  ob¬ 
scurity  that  it  is  hopeless  to  come  to  any  conclu¬ 
sion  about  it.  This  is  the  judgment  of  the  best 
authorities. 

The  hymn  in  early  mediaeval  times  was  used 
at  Vespers,  but  a  little  later  we  find  it  appointed 
for  Terce,  a  most  appropriate  use  as  it  was  at  this 
third  hour  that  the  Holy  Ghost  descended  upon 
the  Apostles  at  Pentecost.  In  the  Divine  Office 
it  is  now  used  at  both  Vespers  and  Terce  but  only 
in  Whitsuntide. 

So  deeply  has  this  great  hymn  appealed  to  the 
devotional  sense  of  English-speaking  Church¬ 
men  that  no  less  than  fifty-one  translations  of  it 
are  extant.  The  one  most  commonly  used,  and 
which  stands  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  is 
by  Bishop  John  Cosin,  of  Durham.  The  poet 
Dryden  also  made  a  translation  of  it  which  may 
be  found  in  his  works,  and  Tate  and  Brady  made 
two  translations,  both  of  which,  like  most  of  their 
poetical  lucubrations,  have  fallen  into  happy  ob¬ 
livion.  Bishop  Doane  of  New  Jersey  made  also 
two  translations  as  far  back  as  1824,  but  neither 
have  passed  into  popular  use. 


51 


The  longer  version  which  appears  in  the  Ordi¬ 
nation  and  Consecration  service  of  the  Prayer 
Book,  beginning, — 

“Come,  Holy  Ghost,  eternal  God, 

Proceeding  from  above, 

Both  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 

The  God  of  peace  and  love,” 

is  by  an  unknown  translator.  It  was  in  part 
printed  in  the  first  English  Prayer  Book,  (1549), 
and  would  seem  to  be  the  first  translation  made 
into  the  English  tongue.  It  is  one  of  the  wordiest 
translations  ever  made,  rendering  twenty-four 
lines  of  terse  Latin  into  sixty-four  English  lines 
of  weak  and  pompous  verse  which  wander  very 
far  from  the  original. 

There  is  another  translation  which  Arch¬ 
bishop  Parker  included  in  his  compilation  en¬ 
titled  The  Whole  Psalter ,  and  which  some  author¬ 
ities  think  to  be  older  than  the  verbose  version  in 
the  Book  of  1549.  It  is  of  the  same  length  as  the 
latter,  but  many  of  the  stanzas  are  much  more 
forceful  and  terse.  It  begins, 

“Come  Holy  Ghost:  eternal  God, 

Which  doost  from  God  proceede, 

The  Father  fyrst:  and  eke  the  Sonne, 

One  God  as  we  do  reade. 

Oh,  visit  thou:  our  minds  and  hearts, 

Thy  heavenly  grace  inspire: 

That  we  in  truth:  and  godliness, 

May  set  our  whole  desire.” 


52 


The  verbosity  of  the  two  previous  versions 
may  have  stimulated  Bishop  Cosin  to  make  his 
translation,  which  is  a  faithful  reflection  of  the 
tone  of  the  original  Latin,  although  like  his 
predecessors,  he  leaves  much  to  be  desired 
when  it  comes  to  rendering  the  meaning  of  the 
Latin  lines. 

By  far  the  most  exact  English  reproduction  of 
the  thought  and  meaning  of  the  hymn  that  the 
present  writer  has  seen,  is  to  be  found  in  Samuel 
W.  Duffield’s  The  Latin  Hymn-Writers  and  their 
Hymns.  It  is  worth  while  to  reproduce  it 
parallel  to  the  original.  The  translation  is  pre¬ 
sumably  by  Mr.  Duffield,  although  no  statement 
is  made  to  that  effect  in  his  book.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  he  did  not  preserve  the  metre  of 
the  Latin  verses  : 


Veni,  Creator  Spiritus, 
Mentes  tuorum  visita, 

Ini  pie  superna  gratia 

Quae  tu  creasti  pectora. 

Qui  Paraclitus  diceris 

Donum  Dei  altissimi, 

Foils  vivus,  ignis,  cliaritas, 

ICt  spiritalis  unctio. 

Tu  septifonnis  munere 

Dextrae  Dei  tu  digitus, 

Tu  rite  protnissum  Patris, 

Sermone  ditans  guttura. 


O  Holy  Ghost,  Creator,  come  1 

Thy  people's  mind  pervade 

And  fill  with  Thy  supernal 
grace 

The  souls  which  Thou  hast 
made. 

Thou  who  art  called  the  Para¬ 
clete, 

The  gift  of  God  most  high ; 

Thon  living  fount  and  fire  and 
love 

Our  spirit’s  pure  ally  ; 

Thou  sevenfold  Giver  of  all 
good ; 

Finger  of  God’s  right  hand  ; 

Thou  promise  of  the  Father, 
rich 

In  words  for  every  land. 


53 


Accende  lumen  sensibus 
Infunde  amorem  cordibus, 
Infirma  nostri  corporis 

Virtute  firmans  perpetim 

Hostem  repellas  longius, 
Pacenique  dones  protinus, 

Ductore  sic  te  praevio 

Vitemus  omne  noxium. 

Per  te  scianius  da  Patrem 

Noscamus  atque  Filium, 
Te  utriusque  Spiritum 

Credamus  omni  tempore. 


Kindle  our  senses  to  a  flame. 

And  fill  our  hearts  with  love, 

And  through  our  bodies’  weak¬ 
ness,  still 

Pour  valour  from  above. 

Drive  further  off  our  enemy, 

And  straightway  give  us 
peace, 

That  with  Thyself  as  such  a 
guide, 

We  may  from  evil  cease. 

Through  Thee  may  we  the  Fa¬ 
ther  know, 

And  thus  confess  the  Son ; 

For  Thee  (from  both  the  Holy 
Ghost), 

We  praise  while  time  shall  run. 


As  a  hymn  for  the  Ordination  Service,  the  Veni 
Creator  goes  back  to  the  eleventh  century,  and 
the  method  of  singing  it,  the  Bishop  and  choir 
alternating  the  lines  or  verses,  has  very  ancient 
authority. 

According  to  the  old  rubrics,  the  first  verse  was 
sung  kneeling,  as  an  act  of  adoration  of  the  Third 
Person  of  the  ever-blessed  Trinity. 

This  posture  is  a  survival  of  the  ancient  mode 
of  rendering  it,  which  required  that  it  be  accom¬ 
panied  with  all  the  adjuncts  of  ritual  glory, — 
lights,  incense,  the  ringing  of  bells,  and  splendour 
of  vestments,  quite  like  the  rendition  of  a  solemn 
Te  Deum,  or  as  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  is  sung  at 
the  midnight  Mass  of  Christmas. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  the  later  ages  have  denied 
to  this  hymn  the  place  as  a  liturgical  devotion 


54 


which  it  enjoyed  in  past  centuries,  and  it  is  to 
be  desired  that  the  ancient  custom  of  rendering 
the  Veni  Creator  as  an  act  of  worship  in  honour 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  be  revived  amongst  us.  We 
have  long  since  reclaimed  our  solemn  litanies  and 
Te  Deums.  We  have  learned  how  to  render 
our  petitions  in  times  of  trouble  and  peril ;  and 
there  is  no  want  of  glad  thanksgiving  in  our  ser¬ 
vices  ;  but  nowhere  in  our  public  corporate  de¬ 
votions  have  we  a  service  of  praise,  honour,  and 
petition  to  Him  who  is  “the  Lord,  and  giver  of 


55 


THE  DIVINE  PRAISES 

Blessed  Be  God. 

Blessed  be  his  holy  Name. 

Blessed  be  Jesus  Christ,  true  God  and 
true  man. 

Blessed  be  the  Name  of  Jesus. 

Blessed  be  his  most  sacred  Heart. 
Blessed  be  Jesus  Christ  in  the  most 
holy  Sacrament  of  the  Altar. 

Blessed  be  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Com¬ 
forter. 

Blessed  be  the  Mother  of  God,  Mary 
most  holy. 

Elessed  be  the  name  of  Mary,  Virgin 
and  Mother. 

Blessed  be  God  in  his  angels  and  in  his 
saints. 


56 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  DIVINE  PRAISES. 

VERYONE  who  reads  this  is  familiar 
with  the  “Divine  Praises,”  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  hear  recited  by  priest  and 
people  at  the  end  of  Benediction  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  and  on  other  occasions  of  special 
devotion. 

How  and  when  this  beautiful  form  of  praise 
originated  is  not  known.  So  far  as  research  has 
been  made,  it  is  first  heard  of  in  1797,  when  a 
certain  Father  Louis  Felici,  a  Jesuit,  lived  in  the 
city  of  Rome,  and  devoted  himself  to  promoting 
pious  confraternities,  and  editing  small  books 
of  prayers  for  the  faithful. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of  the 
ups  and  downs  of  the  Jesuit  Society  will  recall 
that  twenty-four  years  before,  in  1773,  Pope  Cle¬ 
ment  XIV  had  suppressed  the  Society  of  Jesus 
and  that  for  nearly  forty-one  years  it  was  pro¬ 
hibited  by  papal  decree  from  exercising  its  minis¬ 
try  throughout  the  greater  part  of  Europe,  in¬ 
cluding,  of  course,  Italy  and  the  Papal  dominions. 
Individual  members,  however,  were  allowed  to 
minister  to  souls  without  hindrance,  and  Father 


57 


Felici  seems  to  have  been  one  of  those  who,  while 
waiting  with  patience  for  better  days,  employed 
his  time  helping  such  souls  as  he  could  reach. 

From  the  little  that  is  known  of  him,  Father 
Felici  must  have  been  an  interesting  personality. 
From  descriptions  which  have  come  down  to  us 
of  his  work,  one  pictures  him  as  an  active  little 
man,  somewhat  fussy  withal,  but  with  a  great 
love  for  souls,  and  with  an  indefatigable  genius 
for  pursuing  in  gentle  and  loving,  though  very 
insistent  fashion  the  souls  he  had  set  out  to 
win  and  train  for  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Deprived  by  the  suppression  of  his  Society,  of 
the  normal  exercise  of  his  ministry,  he  devoted 
himself  to  teaching  groups  here  and  there,  as 
they  would  listen  to  him,  the  more  intensive  life 
of  prayer. 

He  organized  a  confraternity  for  sailors,  into 
which  he  gathered  many  of  this  rough  element. 
One  can  imagine  him  full  of  it,  talking  to  every¬ 
one  about  it ;  in  short,  “promoting”  it  in  somewhat 
the  same  fashion  as  Father  Stanton  did  his  post¬ 
man’s  league  in  London  a  hundred  years  later. 

Italian  seamen  seem  to  have  been  past-masters 
in  blasphemy,  and  the  good  Father  doubtless 
set  forth  the  Divine  Praises,  having  in  mind  the 
reparation  due  to  God  for  this  common  sin  of 
the  sailor  lads  he  loved,  and  for  whom  he  did 
so  much. 


58 


But  there  seems  to  be  no  evidence  that  Father 
Felici  was  the  author  of  the  Divine  Praises.  It 
is  not  an  uncommon  occurrence  that  the  prop- 
pagator  of  a  popular  devotion  is  supposed  to  be 
its  originator.  We  have  seen  that  the  same  mistake 
was  made  regarding  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  and  the 
Anima  Christi.  For  a  long  time  he  was  supposed 
to  be  its  author,  and  probably  the  majority  of 
those  who  use  it,  even  now,  labour  under  that  im¬ 
pression.  But  it  has  been  quite  clearly  proved 
that  he  only  took  it  as  he  found  it  already  in  use, 
and  incorporated  it  in  The  Spiritual  Exercises . 

Wherever  it  may  have  originated  the  Divine 
Praises,  like  most  such  devotions,  has  had  a 
gradual  development.  The  prayer,  as  at  present 
authorized  in  the  Roman  Church,  contains  at  least 
two  clauses  which  did  not  find  place  in  the  earlier 
forms.  The  words,  “Blessed  be  her  Immaculate 
Conception/’  did  not  appear  until  five  years  after 
the  promulgation  of  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception  of  St.  Mary  by  Pius  IX  in  1854 
declared  acceptance  of  this  pious  opinion  neces¬ 
sary  to  salvation. 

The  inclusion  of  this  clause  does  not  appeal  .to 
the  logical  and  literary  sense  of  the  best  Roman 
Catholic  liturgical  scholars.  Dr.  Adrian  For- 
tesque  criticises  it  as  “strange,  after  blessing  per¬ 
sons,  to  bless  an  abstract  concept.” 

The  last  addition, — “Blessed  be  His  Most  Sa- 


59 


cred  Heart,”  was  not  formally  authorized  until 
1897,  although  it  had  long  before  been  in  popu¬ 
lar  use. 

The  use  of  the  Divine  Praises  amongst  our¬ 
selves  very  likely  began  with  its  inclusion  in 
Father  Arthur  H.  Stanton’s  Catholic  Prayers. 

It  is  a  wholesome  sign  showing  an  absence 
of  any  mere  imitative  dependence  on  Roman 
sources,  that  there  has  been  a  distinct  Anglican 
development  of  its  form.  Devout  Roman 
Catholics  are  now  asking  for  the  insertion  of 
an  ascription  of  praise  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  has  long  since  found  its  place  in  the 
form  used  by  Anglicans. 

From  time  to  time,  efforts  have  been  made  to 
introduce  other  clauses,  as  the  devotion  of  the 
people  suggests.  In  Siena,  after  the  ascription 
of  blessing  to  St.  Mary,  is  sometimes  inserted, 
“Blessed  be  her  most  pure  Spouse,  St.  Joseph”; 
and  the  words,  “Blessed  be  her  most  pure  Heart,” 
are  occasionally  found. 

These  additions,  however,  seem  to  be  quite 
local,  and  have  had  no  great  vogue.  The  ob¬ 
jection  which  is  made  to  adding  such  ascriptions 
as  these  seems  to  be  valid  when  the  original 
purpose  of  the  prayer  is  recalled.  There  seems 
to  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  first  used  as  an  act  of 
reparation  for  the  outrage  done  to  the  honour  of 
God  by  sins  of  blasphemy. 


60 


Unless  this  special  intention  is  to  be  lost  sight 
of,  it  were  wise  to  permit  the  introduction  of  no 
ascription  save  to  the  Adorable  Persons  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  for  while  moralists  hold  that  the 
sin  of  blasphemy  can  be  committed  against  the 
Saints,  they  all  agree  that  this  would  be  only  a 
kind  of  secondary  blasphemy,  touching  the  honour 
of  God  through  these  in  whom  He  dwells.  Even 
the  praise  of  the  Mother  of  God  might  seem  out 
of  place  if  the  original  purpose  is  to  be  strictly 
adhered  to. 

But  if  it  be  a  stimulus  to  love  and  devotion, 
why  limit  the  prayer  to  the  purpose  intended  by 
good  old  Father  Felici,  who  lived  in  Italy  more 
than  a  century  a^o?  .America  has  sins  numer- 
ous  enough  and  bad  enough  for  which  indeed  all 
possible  reparation  ought  continually  to  be  made ; 
but  it  happens,  by  the  mercy  of  God,  that  blas¬ 
phemy  is  not  one  of  our  national  sins.  We  have 
too  much  indifference  amongst  us  for  that.  A 
man  cannot  very  vigorously  blaspheme  one  to 
whom  he  is  indifferent,  or  in  whom  he  does  not 
believe. 

Chesterton  says  blasphemy  depends  on  faith 
and  fades  with  it.  “If  anyone  doubts  this,  let  him 
sit  down  seriously  and  try  to  think  blasphemous 
thoughts  about  Thor.  I  think  his  familv  would 
find  him  at  the  end  of  the  day  in  a  state  of 
seme  exhaustion.” 


61 


To  an  Italian,  the  Catholic  religion  is  a  very 
present  thing.  He  may  hate  it,  but  he  has  got  to 
believe  in  it.  He  cannot  get  very  far  away  from 
it,  try  as  he  may.  The  result  is  seen  in  that 
which  has  been  described  as  “the  atrocious  blas¬ 
phemies  which  a  passionate  Italian  is  apt  to  for¬ 
mulate  with  almost  diabolical  ingenuity.” 

It  may  have  been  this  that  Father  Felici  was 
trying  to  offset  and  repair.  But  one  is  not  sure 
that  there  may  not  be  another  side  to  the  sub¬ 
ject.  Cardinal  Manning  once  said,  “Italian  is  the 
weakest  language  in  the  world.  It  is  all  superla¬ 
tives.” 

If  this  be  so,  the  Italian  who  loses  his  temper, 
and  wishes  to  express  himself  accordingly,  is  at 
a  disadvantage  from  the  beginning.  He  has  no 
moderate  words  at  his  command  in  his  most  sober 
moments,  and  it  may  be  that  what  to  us  has  the 
sound  of  fearful  blasphemy,  connotes  less  to  the 
Italian  mind, — and  perhaps  to  the  mind  of  the 
merciful  God  who  looks  on  the  heart, — than  a 
mild  expletive  would  to  the  cold,  reserved  New 
Englander. 

But  it  is  not  only  for  blasphemy  that  reparation 
is  needed.  Those  who  have  learned  to  know  and 
love  the  Divine  Praises,  realize  as  they  look  out 
across  the  world,  as  every  day’s  news  brings 
word  of  the  hideous  welter  of  sin  and  sorrow,  of 
wrong  to  man  and  outrage  to  the  majesty  and  love 


62 


of  God,  breaking  of  human  hearts  and  crucifying 
the  Lord  of  life  afresh,  that  one  of  the  chief  du¬ 
ties  of  the  loving  soul  is  by  our  praise  and  prayer 
and  service  to  balance  honour  against  dishonour, 
fervour  against  indifference,  love  against  hate, 
reverence  against  scorn. 

When  they  curse,  we  cry,  “Blessed  be  God” ; 
when  they  flout  and  deny  we  proclaim,  “Blessed 
be  His  Holy  Name!” 


63 


THE  ANGELUS 

THE  Angel  of  the  Lord  announced  unto 
Mary  and  she  conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

Hail  Mary,  full  of  grace,  the  Lord  Is 
with  thee.  Blessed  art  thou  among  women, 
and  blessed  is  the  Fruit  of  thy  womb, 
Jesus.  Holy  Mary,  Mother  of  God, 
pray  for  us  sinners  now  and  at  the  hour 
of  our  death.  Amen. 

Behold  the  handmaid  of  the  Lord:  be  It 
unto  me  according  to  thy  word. 

Hail  Mary,  etc. 

The  Word  was  made  flesh:  and  dwelt 
among  us. 

Hail,  Mary,  etc. 

Let  us  pray. 

We  beseech  Thee,  O  Lord,  pour  Thy 
grace  into  our  hearts;  that,  as  we  have 
known  the  Incarnation  of  Thy  Son  Jesus 
Christ  by  the  message  of  an  Angel,  so 
by  His  cross  and  passion  we  may  be 
brought  unto  the  glory  of  His  resurrec¬ 
tion;  through  the  same  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  Amen. 


64 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  ANGELUS. 


HE  Angelus  is  a  devotion  in  honour  of 
the  Incarnation  of  our  Rord.  It  is 
essentially  the  recitation  of  the  Hail 
Mary  thrice,  but  in  later  times  there  have  been 
added  to  it  three  versicles,  and  the  Prayer 
Book  Collect  for  the  feast  of  the  Annuncia¬ 
tion.  The  name  of  the  devotion  is  taken  from 
the  first  word  of  the  Ratin  form  of  the  open¬ 
ing  versicle, — Angelus  Domini  Nuntiaznt  Marine , 
— The  angel  of  the  Rord  announced  unto  Mary. 

The  origin  of  the  Angelus  is  obscure.  Origi¬ 
nally  it  was  used  only  in  the  evening,  but  of  later 
centuries,  the  custom  has  become  universal  of 
saying  it  also  at  noon  and  in  the  early  morning. 
There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  recited 
very  generally  throughout  Europe  as  an  evening 
devotion  in  the  thirteenth  century,  a  bell  being 
sounded  to  warn  tfle  faithful  of  the  hour. 


As  early  as  the  year  975  we  find  a  mention  of 
the  Tres  Orationes ,  or  Three  Prayers,  in  a 
monastic  rule  drawn  up  by  St.  Ethelwold  of  Win¬ 
chester,  which  were  to  be  said  three  times  each 
day,  before  Matins,  at  Prime,  and  after  Compline. 


65 


While  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  Hail  Mary 
was  a  part  of  this  devotion,  it  is  probable  that 
out  of  this  practice,  which  also  prevailed  in  cer¬ 
tain  parts  of  the  Continent,  developed  the  later 
use  of  the  Angelus. 

The  morning  Angelus  in  its  earliest  form  is 
first  mentioned  in  the  chronicle  of  the  city  of 
Parma,  1318,  when  what  was  known  as  the 
“Peace  Bell”  was  rung;  and  it  is  on  record  that 
the  Bishop  exhorted  the  people  to  recite,  at  the 
sound  of  the  bell,  the  Lord’s  Prayer  and  the 
Hail  Mary  three  times  each  for  the  peace  of  the 
city. 

The  mid-day  Angelus  which  originated  in  Ger¬ 
many,  seems  to  have  been  a  memorial  of  our 
Lord’s  Passion,  and  in  1386  at  Prague  and  in 
1423  at  Mayence,  we  find  it  mentioned  as  being 
rung  only  on  Fridays,  although  it  was  soon  ex¬ 
tended  to  the  other  days  of  the  week. 

In  an  English  manuscript  in  the  Harleian  Col¬ 
lection  written  in  1576  it  is  suggested  that  the 
Pesurrection  be  commemorated  at  the  morning 
Angelus,  the  Passion  at  noon,  and  the  Incarnation 
at  evening,  since  these  hours  correspond  to  the 
actual  times  at  which  these  Mysteries  took  place. 
.  Some  manuals  of  this  period  give  the  Regina 
Coeli  as  a  devotion  appropriate  to  be  said  in  hon¬ 
our  of  the  Resurrection  at  the  ringing  of  the 
morning  Angelus,  and  this  very  likely  was  the 


66 


beginning  of  the  present  custom  of  substituting 
the  Regina  Coeli  for  the  Angelus  during  Easter¬ 
tide. 

The  Regina  Coeli  is  so  called  from  the  first 
two  words  of  the  Latin  form.  It  is  said  in 
place  of  the  Angelus  during  Eastertide,  i.  e.,  from 
the  first  Vespers  of  Easter  until  the  First  Ves¬ 
pers  of  Trinity  Sunday.  Its  authorship  is  un¬ 
known,  but  it  dates  back  to  about  A.  D.  noo.  It 
was  adopted  by  the  first  Franciscans,  and 
through  their  influence  spread  throughout  the 
Christian  world.  About  fifty  years  after  the 
death  of  St.  Francis,  we  find  it  in  general  use 
throughout  the  Western  Church.  Its  form  is  as 
follows : 

V.  Rejoice,  0  Queen  of  heaven,  Alleluia. 

R.  For  He  whom  thou  wast  found  worthy  to  bear, 
Alleluia, 

V.  Hath  risen  as  He  said,  Alleluia. 

R.  Pray  for  us  to  God,  Alleluia. 

V.  Rejoice  and  be  glad,  O  Virgin  Mary! 

Alleluia. 

R.  For  the  Lord  is  risen  indeed.  Alleluia. 

Let  us  pray. 

O  God,  who  by  the  resurrection  of  Thy  Son  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord,  hast  vouchsafed  to  give  gladness 
unto  the  world:  grant,  we  beseech  Thee,  that  we  be¬ 
ing  holpen  by  the  prayers  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  His 
Mother,  may  attain  to  the  joys  of  everlasting  life. 
Through  the  same  Christ  our  Lord.  Amen. 

As  the  principal  devotion  in  the  Angelus  is  the 


67 


Angelical  Salutation,  or,  as  it  is  commonly  called, 
the  Hail  Alary,  it  will  be  of  primary  interest  to 
trace  the  history  of  this  prayer  which  for  many 
centuries  has  been  so  dear  to  the  hearts  of  Chris¬ 
tians  in  every  part  of  the  world. 

From  the  earliest  ages  of  the  Christian 
Church  the  instinct  of  the  hearts  of  men  has  been 
to  give  honour  to  her  whom  Incarnate  God  chose 
to  be  His  Mother.  This  devotion  found  expres¬ 
sion  in  various  ways,  and  from  an  early  period  the 
use  of  the  Salutation  with  which  the  angel 
Gabriel  greeted  the  Blessed  Virgin  when  he 
came  to  announce  to  her  her  high  vocation, 
has  been  a  popular  one. 

His  words,  or  words  conveying  a  like  meaning, 
are  found  in  authorized  services  both  in  the  east 
and  in  the  west  as  early  as  the  sixth  century, 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  at  that  time  anything  an¬ 
alogous  to  the  later  Hail  Alary  was  in  use  as  a 
separate  devotion. 

Like  most  religious  practices  whose  origin  is 
obscure,  the  Hail  Mary  has  its  legend.  One 
of  the  most  attractive  is  that  concerning  St. 
Ildephonsus  of  Toledo,  who  flourished  about  660. 

The  story  which  has  been  told  for  at  least 
seven  centuries,  is  that  on  one  occasion  going  to 
the  cathedral  by  night  to  pray,  the  saint  had  a 
vision  of  the  Blessed  Alother  seated  on  his  own 
episcopal  throne,  surrounded  by  a  choir  of  vir- 


68 


gins  engaged  in  singing  her  praise.  Falling  on  his 
knees  the  saint  cried  out  in  the  words  of  St.  Ga¬ 
briel,  adding  to  them  by  an  inspiration  of  devo¬ 
tion,  the  ejaculation  of  Elisabeth,  “Blessed  is 
the  Fruit  of  thy  womb.” 

Our  Lady  was  so  pleased  with  his  homage  that 
she  presented  him  on  the  spot  with  a  chasuble 
of  rare  workmanship,  and  the  saint  henceforth 
diligently  promulgated  this  devotion  amongst  his 
flock.  There  is  the  charm  of  simplicity  about  this 
legend  which  does  honour  to  the  heart  of  him 
who  invented  it,  but  unhappily  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  St.  Ildephonsus  never  heard  of  it. 

The  devotion,  according  to  the  conclusion  of 
Father  Thurston  who  has  studied  its  history  care¬ 
fully,  almost  certainly  arose  out  of  the  use  of  the 
versicles  and  responses  found  in  the  Little  Of¬ 
fice  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  somewhere  about  the 
tenth  century. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  by  the  year  1184  it  was 
a  common  practice  amongst  pious  folk  in  England 
to  use  the  Angelical  Salutation.  The  Cistercian 
Abbot  Baldwin  was  made  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury  in  that  year,  and  he  wrote  a  paraphrase  of  it, 
saying  that  it  was  in  these  words  with  the  addi¬ 
tion  of  the  words  of  St.  Elisabeth,  that  “we  daily 
greet  the  most  Blessed  Virgin.”  The  Hail  Mary, 
like  the  Rosary  and  so  many  other  Catholic  devo- 


69 


tions  of  a  similar  kind,  was  thus  early  a  regular 
practice  in  the  Church  of  England. 

Across  the  channel  in  France,  it  had  spread 
with  equal  fervour,  and  in  1196  a  decree  of 
Eudes  de  Sully,  Bishop  of  Paris,  issued  in  a 
synod  of  his  diocese,  directed  the  clergy  to  see 
to  it  that  the  faithful  were  as  familiar  with  the 
Hail  Mary  as  with  the  Lord’s  Prayer  and  the 
Creed.  Beginning  at  this  time,  there  were  re¬ 
peated  similar  enactments  in  many  parts  of  the 
world.  The  first  of  these  in  England  was  at  a 
council  held  at  Durham  in  1217. 

The  Angelical  Salutation,  previous  to  the  addi¬ 
tion  of  the  Ora  pro  nobis ,  was  not,  however,  used 
without  some  external  act  of  devotion.  The  gen¬ 
eral  custom  was  to  kneel,  or  even  prostrate  one¬ 
self,  at  each  Hail  Mary,  and  as  early  as  the 
twelfth  century,  the  150  Hail  Marys  of  the 
present  form  of  the  Rosary,  were  in  use.  In 
certain  religious  Orders  this  was  enjoined. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  during  the  days 
of  the  Reformation,  before  the  Ora  pro  nobis  had 
been  added  in  the  general  use  of  the  Salutation, 
certain  protestants  objected  to  this  devotion  on  the 
ground  that  a  mere  greeting  was  without  point, 
as  it  contained  no  petition.  But  when  a  little 
later,  the  Ora  pro  nobis  was  added,  another  cry 
went  up  that  Catholics  were  unduly  exalting  the 
Mother  of  God  by  asking  her  to  pray  for  them. 


70 


Catholics,  however,  did  not  wait  for  this  ob¬ 
jection  before  making  a  petition  to  the  Blessed 
Mother.  However  disingenuous  it  was  on  the 
part  of  their  opponents,  they  themselves  had 
long  before  realized  that  there  was  an  incongruity 
in  calling  on  Blessed  Mary,  and  then  saying 
nothing  to  her.  During  the  fourteenth  century, 
nearly  two  hundred  years  before  the  Reformation, 
we  find  paraphrases  of  the  Hail  Mary  which  in¬ 
cluded  various  petitions  for  her  intercessions. 
Among  the  best  known  of  these  was  one  which 
for  a  long  time  was  attributed,  although  wrongly, 
to  the  great  poet  Dante.  In  Italian  it  ran  as 
follows : 


“O  Vergin  benedetta,  sempre  tu 
Ora  per  noi  a  Dio,  che  ci  perdoni 
E  diaci  grazia  a  viver  si  quaggin 
Che’l  paradiso  al  nostro  fin  si  doni.” 

Freely  Englished,  this  verse  is  as  follows : 
"O  Blessed  Virgin,  pray  for  us  to  God  always, 
that  He  may  pardon  us  and  give  us  grace  so  to 
live  here  below  that  He  may  reward  us  with 
Paradise  at  our  death.” 

The  same  devotional  tendency  to  appeal  to 
the  Blessed  Mother  to  pray  for  sinners,  especially 
as  death  drew  near,  showed  itself  in  the  later 
middle  ages  throughout  the  whole  Catholic  world. 
Versions  similar  to  the  above  are  found  in  Italian, 


71 


Spanish,  German  and  Provencal,  much  variety 
existing  in  their  form. 

The  Ave  Maria  in  its  modern  form  is  found 
in  the  first  Breviary  of  the  Camoldolese  monks 
about  1514,  and  it  is  generally  supposed  from  this 
fact,  that  it  originated  in  Italy,  and  spread  thence 
throughout  the  Christian  world. 

The  statement  is  made  by  one  authority  that  the 
present  full  form  of  the  Hail  Mary  is  to  be  found 
in  the  handwriting  of  St.  Antoninus  of  Florence 
who  died  in  1459.  This  is  uncertain,  however. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  a  book  by  Savona¬ 
rola  printed  in  1495,  a  copy  of  which  is  preserved 
in  the  British  Museum,  the  Hail  Mary  is  printed 
in  its  modern  form,  with  the  exception  of  the 
word  our. 

A  still  earlier  publication  was  the  French  “Cal¬ 
endar  of  Shepherds,”  which  was  issued  in  1493, 
and  contained  the  later  form  in  part.  An  in¬ 
teresting  English  translation  of  this  work  was 
made  by  one  Pynson  in  which  was  produced  a 
quaint  illustration  representing  the  Pope  and  the 
whole  hierarchy,  symbolized  by  a  cardinal,  two 
monks,  and  several  Bishops,  kneeling  before  the 
Blessed  Mother  invoking  her  with  the  following 
salutation  and  petition :  “Ayle  Marye  fulle  of 
grace  god  is  with  the  thou  arte  blessyed  amonge 
all.  Holy  Mary  moder  of  god  pray  for  us  syn- 
ners.” 


The  present  form  of  the  Salutation, — “Hail, 
Mary, Full  of  grace,  the  Lord  is  with  thee;Blessed 
art  thou  among  women,  and  blessed  is  the  Fruit 
of  thy  womb,  Jesus.  Holy  Mary,  Mother  of  God, 
pray  for  us  sinners,  now,  and  at  the  hour  of  our 
death,  Amen,” — did  not  receive  official  approval 
until  the  Roman  Breviary  was  revised  in  1568. 
It  was  then  inserted  in  the  form  in  which  we 
now  say  it.  It  is  certain,  however,  from  what 
we  have  seen,  that  it  was  not  new  at  that  time,  in 
any  part  of  the  western  world.  People  did  not 
say  it  because  it  was  put  in  the  Breviary;  but 
it  was  placed  in  the  Breviary  because  it  was  the 
practically  universal  way  of  saying  it. 

This  illustrates  the  well  known  liturgical  prin¬ 
ciple  that  the  Church  waits  to  promulgate  devo¬ 
tions,  and  forms  of  worship,  until  they  have  been 
proved  by  long  popular  use  to  be  good.  And  she 
always  gives  her  children  the  freedom  to  make 
such  tests. 

In  out  of  the  way  districts,  however,  the  old 
form  persisted,  especially  among  the  ignorant. 
Father  Herbert  Thurston  is  authority  for  the 
statement  that  within  the  memory  of  living  men, 
it  was  the  custom  amongst  the  peasantry  in  certain 
sections  of  Ireland  to  use  both  parts  of  the  Salu¬ 
tation,  but  to  regard  them  as  separate  devotions. 
They  spoke  of  the  “Hail  Mary,”  and  also  of  the 
“Holy  Mary.” 


73 


The  historical  development  of  the  devotion  has 
passed  through  four  phases.  These  are  quaintly 
set  forth  in  an  old  German  book  of  devotion,  pub¬ 
lished  in  1474,  called  Der  Salen  Troist.  It  de¬ 
clares  that  the  first  part  was  composed  by  the 
angel  Gabriel;  the  second  part  by  St.  Elisabeth 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Visitation;  the  third  in¬ 
serted  by  the  Pope,  referring  to  the  belief  that 
Urban  IV  in  1261,  had  ordered  the  addition  of  the 
Sacred  Name  of  Jesus;  and  the  last  portion  by 
the  consent  and  use  of  the  Church  at  large.  With 
the  possible  exception  of  the  mention  of  the  Pope, 
this  would  seem  to  be  an  accurate  account  of  the 
development  of  the  Hail  Mary. 

The  question  raised  by  non-Catholics  of  the 
propriety  of  the  Ora  pro  nobis,  involves,  of 
course,  the  whole  subject  of  the  Communion  of 
Saints,  and  this  is  not  the  place  for  its  discussion. 
One  might  add  just  this:  Those  amongst  us  who 
object  to  asking  the  Saints  in  glory  to  pray  for 
us  are  almost  invariably  those  who  have  never 
invoked  the  Saints.  To  them  it  is  an  academic 
question. 

Those  who  have  for  long  years  counted  the 
Saints  amongst  their  friends,  who  have  in  their 
love  for  them  learned  to  speak  familiarly  with 
them,  to  rejoice  in  their  loving  companionship, 
and  in  the  power  of  their  intercessions,  need  no 
academic  or  historical  arguments  to  show  them 


74 


what  is  wise  and  right.  They  have  the  witness  in 
themselves,  and  spiritual  experience  is  worth 
more  than  all  the  reasoning  of  the  schools.  They 
have  been  content  humbly  to  follow  the  custom  of 
the  Church  throughout  the  entire  world,  east  and 
west,  and  in  this  following  they  have  found  hap¬ 
piness  and  reward. 


75 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THE  CHISTMAS  CRIB. 

HROUGHOUT  the  land,  Christmas  is 
celebrated  in  every  home  where  there 
is  the  joyful  presence  of  little  children, 
by  the  decorating  and  illumination  of  a  Christ¬ 
mas  tree.  The  statement  was  made  some 
years  ago  that  in  New  York  State  alone  some¬ 
thing  over  four  million  young  pines  and  fir  trees 
were  cut  every  year  for  this  purpose. 

The  custom  is  a  beautiful  one,  even  though 
it  be  of  pagan  origin;  and  it  should  by  all 
means  be  encouraged.  But  it  would  become 
thoroughly  Christianized  if  at  the  foot  of  every 
tree  in  the  land  there  was  erected  the  touch¬ 
ing  representation  of  the  scene  in  the  stable  at 
Bethlehem  on  the  first  Christmas  night. 

This  custom  is  happily  on  the  increase,  and 
the  Church  furnishing-stores  are  prepared  to 
supply  very  beautiful  cribs,  or  “creches/'  as 
they  are  often  called,  at  any  price  ranging  from 
tiny  ones,  costing  but  a  few  cents,  that  might 
be  erected  on  the  nursery  or  library  table,  to 
elaborate  representations  of  great  cost  and 
splendour. 


76 


Would  it  not  be  a  blessing  for  every  house¬ 
hold  to  which  this  suggestion  comes,  to  have  a 
crib, — a  little  manger  full  of  straw,  a  little 
Christ  Child  with  loving  hands  outstretched, 
and  kneeling  round  in  sweet  adoration,  the  Vir¬ 
gin  Mother,  Blessed  Joseph,  the  Shepherds 
from  the  hills ;  and  standing  by,  the  gentle 
beasts  of  the  stall?  Is  there  likely  to  be  any 
way  devised  which  could  tell  to  our  little  chil¬ 
dren  so  vivid  a  story  of  how  God  loved  them 
and  sent  his  dear  Son  to  save  and  bless  them? 

No  special  forms  of  prayer  and  devotion  are 
appointed  for  use  in  connection  with  the  Crib. 
At  such  a  time  it  is  indeed  fitting  that  every¬ 
one  should  be  free  to  speak  to  God  as  the  lov¬ 
ing  impulse  of  his  own  heart  might  dictate. 
But  naturally,  as  we  look  upon  the  symbolic 
representation  of  God  our  Saviour  humbling 
Himself  to  become  a  helpless  little  child  amidst 
the  cold  and  destitution  of  the  stable,  the  words 
of  many  sweet  old  carols  come  to  mind,  and  in 
every  part  of  the  world,  especially  in  places 
where  little  children  gather  for  their  Christ¬ 
mas  devotions,  it  has  been  the  custom  to  sing 
the  praise  of  the  Infant  God  even  as  did  the 
angels  among  the  midnight  stars  above  the  hills 
of  Bethlehem. 

When  placed  in  a  church,  the  Crib  should  not 
be  in  the  sanctuary  or  choir,  but  in  the  nave 


77 


where  it  will  be  easily  accessible  to  everyone. 
It  can  be  easily  constructed  as  a  simple  frame, 
and  covered  with  the  Christmas  greens;  or 
there  may  be  no  structure  at  all,  the  manger 
being  placed  on  a  platform  raised  about  two 
feet  from  the  floor,  surrounded  by  green 
boughs. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  have  a  figure  of  the 
Holy  Child  lying  in  the  straw  of  the  manger, 
although  kneeling  figures  of  the  Blessed  Virgin 
and  St.  Joseph  often  accompany  it,  and  in  the 
more  elaborate  arrangements  those  of  the  Shep¬ 
herds,  and  the  ox  and  the  ass.  Figures  of  the 
Wise  Men  are  substituted  for  the  Shepherds 
at  Epiphany,  and  a  red  light  hung  above  to 
symbolize  the  star.  In  churches  where  there  is 
a  midnight  Mass,  the  Crib  is  prepared  before¬ 
hand,  and  immediately  after  the  reading  of  the 
Gospel,  the  figure  of  the  Holy  Child  is  placed 
in  the  manger.  The  Crib  should  be  removed 
after  the  Octave  of  the  feast  of  the  Epiphany. 

The  Crib,  like  the  Stations  of  the  Cross  and  so 
many  like  devotions,  is  Franciscan  in  its  origin, 
and  the  story  of  its  beginning  is  one  of  the 
sweetest  in  the  history  of  the  early  days  of  the 
Friars  Minor. 

We  are  told  that  the  autumn  of  1223  saw  the 
great  Saint  of  Assisi  at  Rome  seeking  the  ap¬ 
probation  of  Pope  Honorius  III  for  the  rule 


78 


by  which  his  growing  community  was  to  be 
governed. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  Franciscan  an- 
nals  will  recall  the  difficulties  that  had  beset 
the  way  of  the  Saint  in  those  latter  years  of 
his  life,  so  short,  as  men  count  time,  but  so 
aflame  with  divine  love.  But  now  at  last,  the 
great  instrument  which  was  to  rule  the  sons 
of  Francis,  received  the  imprimatur  of  the 
Church,  and  the  Poverello’s  heart  was  over¬ 
flowing  with  grateful  devotion. 

The  Rule  was  formally  sanctioned  on  the 
29th  of  November.  Advent  was  upon  the 
Church,  and  it  had  been  borne  in  upon  him 
that  this  solemn  season  was  to  bring  him  some 
special  blessing  from  God  in  his  own  interior 
life. 

Leaving  Rome,  he  made  his  way  to  Greccio 
in  the  Umbrian  hills.  Here  dwelt  his  friend, 
Giovanni  de  V allita,  whom  Franciscan  students 
know  by  the  Englished  name  of  John  of  Grec¬ 
cio.  This  John  was  a  man  of  substance,  who 
owned  the  rocky  cliffs  which  fronted  the  town. 

Here  amidst  the  solitude  of  a  lofty  eminence 
where  the  rock  falls  sheer  some  hundreds  of 
feet  to  the  slopes  of  the  lower  hills,  John  had 
erected  a  hermitage  for  Francis  and  his  breth¬ 
ren. 

In  this  lonely  place,  amidst  the  rugged 

79 


beauty  of  the  mountains,  the  Saint  made  his 
long  Advent  retreat,  meditating  upon  the  mys¬ 
teries  which  the  joyous  season  of  the  Nativity 
was  about  to  present  once  more  to  the  hearts 
of  men.  As  he  thought  on  the  sweetness  of 
the  divine  condescension  he  felt  a  vital  urge 
to  celebrate  the  coming  festival  as  he  had  never 
done  before. 

He  sent  for  John,  and  said  to  him:  “I  would 
make  a  memorial  of  the  Child  who  was  born 
in  Bethlehem,  and  in  some  sort  I  would  look 
upon  the  hardness  of  His  infant  state,  how  He 
lay  amid  the  hay  in  the  manger  with  the  ox 
and  the  ass  standing  by.  If  you  will,  we  shall 
celebrate  the  feast  together  at  Greccio,  and  do 
you  go  before,  and  prepare  as  I  bid  you.” 

John  hastened  back  to  Greccio,  and  in  the 
forest  near  the  hermitage  he  built  a  stable, 
rough  and  unfinished,  with  a  manger,  and  be¬ 
side  the  manger  he  set  up  an  altar. 

Word  went  forth  through  the  countryside 
that  the  Little  Poor  Man  of  Assisi  was  come 
to  spend  the  Feast  in  their  obscure  parish,  and 
of  what  he  was  preparing  in  honour  of  the  Lord’s 
Birthday. 

The  hill-country  of  Umbria  has  about  it  none 
of  the  warm  breath  of  the  South  at  the  winter 
solstice,  but  the  bitterness  of  the  night  did  not 
stay  the  pious  peasant  folk  from  hastening,  like 


80 


the  shepherds  of  old,  to  see  this  strange  thing 
which  had  been  made  known  to  them. 

From  far  and  near  they  came,  through  the 
crisp  winter  night,  lighting  their  way  up  the 
rocky  trail  by  torches  which  glowed  along  the 
mountain  steep  like  gleaming  constellations  set 
to  shine  upon  the  manger-bed  of  the  Infant 
King. 

When  they  drew  near  tl]ey  saw  that  around 
the  manger  Francis  had  grouped  figures  of  the 
Blessed  Mother  and  St.  Joseph,  and  the  beasts 
of  the  stall. 

Francis  acted  as  deacon  of  the  midnight 
Mass,  and  having  sung  the  Gospel  he  kneeled 
for  a  little  space  to  meditate  before  the  manger 
on  the  sweet  mystery  of  that  night.  A  sense 
of  reverence  had  made  him  shrink  from  mak¬ 
ing  a  representation  of  the  Infant  God,  but  as 
he  meditated,  (so  the  ancient  legend  says),  the 
people  were  overwhelmed  with  awe  to  see  in 
the  arms  of  Francis  a  little  child  of  strange  and 
wondrous  beauty  whose  form  radiated  a  light 
of  heavenly  softness. 

Thus  did  the  divine  goodness  reward  the 
humble  Saint  for  his  reverence  and  devotion  to 
the  Mystery  of  the  Manger.  To  him  whose 
sense  of  his  own  unworthiness  would  not  per¬ 
mit  him  on  that  night  of  all  nights  in  the  year 
to  form  an  image  of  the  Holy  Child,  was  given 


81 


to  see  in  his  arms  the  vision  of  the  shining  form 
of  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem. 

The  Mass  was  over,  the  last  blessing  spoken. 
In  silent  awe,  the  country  folk  returned  down 
the  rocky  stair;  their  smouldering  torches 
gleaming  fitfully  along  the  way;  and  disappear¬ 
ing  one  by  one,  they  left  the  mountain  brow  in 
darkness,  save  where  the  great  stars  shed 
their  still  radiance  upon  the  solitary  figure  of 
the  Saint,  kneeling  all  through  the  night  in 
rapt  contemplation  of  the  divine  Word  made 
Flesh. 

Back  to  farm  and  vineyard  the  humble  peas¬ 
ant  people  took  their  way,  but  it  was  a  night 
that  could  not  be  forgotten.  In  tones  of  awe 
men  told  their  fellows  of  the  wondrous  Christ¬ 
mas  scene  upon  the  mount  of  Greccio.  Mothers 
drew  their  dark-eyed  children  to  their  sides, 
and  wearied  not  of  telling  them  the  story  of 
the  Child  they  saw  in  Francis’  arms  what  time 
the  music  of  the  Mass  arose  so  sweet  that  it 
seemed  that  once  again  the  angels,  high 
amongst  the  stars,  were  singing  glory  to  God 
and  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men. 

And,  as  far  and  wide  the  story  went,  pious 
pastors  wisely  thought  to  bring  in  like  manner 
to  their  people  the  scene  in  Bethlehem’s  stable 
long  ago. 

And  so  arose  the  cultus  of  the  Crib,  and 


82 


wherever  sons  of  Francis  went,  on  homely 
roads,  to  heathen  lands,  or  to  far  continents 
across  the  sea,  with  each  returning  Christmas- 
tide  they  sought  to  show  to  humble  souls  how 
in  the  manger  God’s  Son  lay  shivering  in  the 
winter  cold  that  men  might  see  how  great  a 
love  He  bore  to  them. 


83 


THE  STATIONS  OF  THE  CROSS 

I.  Jesus  Condemned  to  Death. 

II.  Jesus  Receives  His  Cross. 

III.  Jesus  Falls  the  First  Time. 

IV.  Jesus  Meets  His  Blessed  Mother. 

V.  The  Cross  is  laid  on  St.  Simon. 

VI.  St.  Veronica  Wipes  the  Face  of  Jesus. 

VII.  Jesus  Falls  the  Second  Time. 

VIII.  Jesus  Comforts  the  Women  of  Jerusalem. 

IX.  Jesus  Falls  the  Third  Time. 

X.  Jesus  Stripped  of  His  Garments. 

XI.  Jesus  Nailed  to  the  Cross. 

XII.  Jesus  Dies  on  the  Cross. 

XIII.  Jesus  Taken  Down  from  the  Cross. 

XIV.  Jesus  Laid  in  the  Tomb. 


84 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE  STATIONS  OF  THE  CROSS. 

N  Lent  more  than  any  other  season  of 
the  year,  the  thoughts  and  affections 
of  the  faithful  turn  to  the  devotion 
mown  as  the  Way,  or  the  Stations  of  the  Cross. 
More  and  more,  thanks  be  to  God,  it  is  becoming 
a  devotion  loved  and  practised  amongst  us,  al¬ 
though  one  would  rejoice  to  see  it  cultivated  not 
only  during  the  solemnities  of  Lent,  but  at  all 
times  of  the  year. 

This  devotion,  like  the  “Three  Hours”  on 
Good  Friday,  is  one  that  does  not,  at  any  rate 
in  its  present  form,  go  back  to  very  remote  an¬ 
tiquity.  The  now  famous  Via  Dolorosa  in  Je¬ 
rusalem  is  said  not  to  have  been  called  by  that 
name  until  the  sixteenth  century,  although 
Christian  piety  in  very  early  ages  marked  out 
the  holy  places  in  Jerusalem  and  its  vicinity 
that  were  connected  with  our  Lord’s  life  and 
sufferings. 

But  there  is  no  evidence  that  any  set  form 
of  devotions  existed  until  late.  St.  Sylvia,  who 
flourished  about  380,  visited  the  Holy  Land, 
and  in  her  “Pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Places/' 


85 


described  minutely  all  the  devotions  that  she 
found  in  use  then,  but  she  makes  no  mention 
of  the  Stations  of  the  Cross. 

St.  Jerome  speaks  of  the  great  throngs  of  pil¬ 
grims  who,  in  his  day,  (he  died  in  420)  paid 
their  devotion  at  the  places  consecrated  by  the 
Passion  of  our  Lord,  but  he  seems  to  know 
nothing  of  this  devotion  as  the  piety  of  later 
centuries  has  developed  it. 

But  not  many  centuries  elapsed  before  the 
purpose  evinced  itself  among  devout  folk  to 
commemorate  these  places  and  the  incidents 
that  sanctified  them.  The  earliest  effort  of 
this  kind  is  said  to  have  been  at  the  monastery 
of  St.  Stephen  at  Bologna.  St.  Petronius,  who 
was  Bishop  of  that  city  in  the  fifth  century,  con¬ 
structed  at  this  monastery  a  series  of  connected 
chapels  each  one  representing  one  of  the  holy 
places  at  Jersualem.  What  devotions  were 
made  here,  however,  is  not  known. 

The  Way  of  the  Cross  in  the  modern  sense, 
had  its  origin  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
while  the  first  promoters  of  the  devotion  are 
unknown,  it  is  supposed  by  many  students  of 
history  that  it  had  its  origin  among  the  Fran¬ 
ciscans,  as  to  these  good  friars  was  entrusted 
the  care  of  the  holy  places  at  Jerusalem  in  1342, 
not  a  great  while  before  the  devotion  of  the 


86 


Station  of  the  Cross  began  to  be  heard  of  in 
various  parts  of  the  Christian  world. 

The  supposition  is  entirely  congruous,  as  it 
was  of  the  genius  of  the  sons  of  St.  Francis 
to  inculcate  love  and  devotion  to  our  Lord  by 
appealing  to  the  dramatic  instinct  of  the  faith¬ 
ful.  St.  Francis  himself  originated  the  devo¬ 
tion  of  the  Crib  for  Christmas,  and  it  was  quite 
like  his  followers  to  have  originated  that  of  the 
“Via  Crucis.” 

As  the  system  of  indulgences  in  the  Roman 
Church  grew  up,  certain  indulgences  were  at¬ 
tached  to  visits  to  the  spots  which  tradition 
identified  with  the  Passion  of  our  Lord.  Fer- 
raris,  who  lived  about  1750  mentions  seven 
such  spots.  These  were  where  our  Lord  met 
His  Blessed  Mother,  where  He  spoke  to  the 
women  of  Jerusalem,  where  He  met  St.  Simon 
of  Cyrene,  where  the  soldiers  cast  lots  for  His 
garments,  the  place  of  the  Crucifixion,  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  and  Pilate’s  hall. 

The  spiritual  blessings  and  consolations  prom¬ 
ised  made  many  long  to  make  the  journey  to 
Jerusalem,  but  in  spite  of  the  popularity  of 
pilgrimages  in  the  middle  ages,  few  could  af¬ 
ford  the  time  and  expense  of  the  journey.  It, 
of  course,  became  increasingly  perilous  when 
the  Saracens  overran  the  East,  and  especially 
after  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453.  So  de- 


87 


vout  souls  were  compelled  to  substitute  some 
devotion  at  home  for  the  Way  of  the  Holy 
Places  at  Jerusalem. 

It  was  in  1520  that  Leo  X  granted  an  indul¬ 
gence  of  a  hundred  days  to  each  of  a  set  of 
carved  Stations  that  had  been  erected  in  the 
cemetery  of  the  Franciscans  at  Antwerp.  But 
these  were  not  the  Stations  of  the  Cross,  strict¬ 
ly  speaking,  but  represented  the  Seven  Sorrows 
of  the  Holy  Mother,  a  devotion  which  was  very 
popular  among  the  Franciscans  and  their  peo¬ 
ple. 

The  word  station  as  referring  to  the  shrines 
of  the  Via  Sacra  at  Jerusalem  occurs,  curiously 
enough,  not  in  the  writings  or  devotions  of  any 
perfervid  Spanish  or  Italian  ascetic,  but  in  the 
narrative  of  a  sober-minded  English  pilgrim  of 
the  simple  English  name  of  William  Wey,  who 
visited  the  Holy  Land  in  1458  and  again  in 
1462,  and  who  has  left  a  description  of  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  the  pilgrims  were  wont  to  pay 
their  devotions  at  the  various  places  hallowed 
by  the  events  of  Good  Friday. 

The  method  of  worshipping  at  the  Holy 
Places  for  many  centuries  was  to  begin  at 
Calvary  and  go  back  event  by  event  to  Pilate’s 
judgment  hall.  By  the  sixteenth  century, 
however,  the  more  reasonable  method  of  going 
from  the  Condemnation  on  to  the  climax  on 


88 


Golgotha,  obtained,  and  it  seems  by  that  time 
to  have  become  a  formal  devotion  very  much  as 
we  have  it  now. 

During  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
several  representations  of  the  Holy  Places  were 
erected  in  Europe.  One  of  the  first  was  built 
by  the  Blessed  Alvarez  at  the  Dominican  convent 
at  Cordova  in  Spain  shortly  before  1420.  Blessed 
Eustochia,  a  Poor  Clare  of  Messina,  set  up  a  set 
of  Stations  in  her  convent  about  the  same  time. 

The  devotion  grew  rapidly  in  popularity,  some 
very  rich  and  famous  Stations  being  erected  in 
Germany  and  the  Low  Countries.  At  Gorlitz  a 
set  of  Stations  was  erected  by  Emmerich  in  1465, 
and  in  1568  Ketzel  did  the  same  at  Nuremberg. 
A  little  later  they  are  found  at  Louvain  and  Fri¬ 
bourg.  This  last  set  was  famous  and  was  copied 
in  many  parts  of  Europe. 

The  Nuremberg  Stations  and  several  others 
were  seven  in  number,  and  were  called  by  the  peo¬ 
ple  the  “Seven  Falls,”  because  they  all  repre¬ 
sented  our  Blessed  Lord  as  being  borne  down  to 
earth  by  the  weight  of  the  Cross.  Most  of  these 
Stations  were  erected  in  the  open  air.  One 
curious  feature  of  them,  in  many  instances,  was 
that  the  distances  along  the  Way  were  the  same 
as  those  on  the  Via  Sacra  at  Jerusalem.  Several 
distinguished  artists  visited  the  Holy  City  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  the  exact  measurements.  But 


89 


strange  to  say,  while  each  one  claimed  to  be  cor* 
rect,  there  is  great  discrepancy  between  them. 

How  the  number  of  the  Stations  was  arrived 
at  is  not  known.  At  different  times  they  varied 
widely.  The  famous  Nuremberg  Stations,  as  we 
have  seen,  were  seven  in  number.  Wey’s  account 
of  the  Stations  at  Jerusalem  in  1458  gives  four¬ 
teen,  but  only  five  of  them  correspond  with  the 
Stations  as  used  at  the  present  day.  Among  those 
that  he  describes  are  Dives’  house;  the  sheep- 
pool,  the  porch  where  Pilate  showed  our  Lord  to 
the  people,  crying  ‘Behold  the  Man”;  and  the 
houses  of  Herod,  and  Simon  the  Pharisee. 

Romanet  Boffin  narrates  that  when  he  visited 
Jerusalem  in  1515  to  get  the  data  for  the  Stations 
he  erected  at  Romans  in  Dauphine  he  was  told 
by  the  Franciscans  resident  there  that  the  num¬ 
ber  should  be  thirty-one.  Manuals  of  devotion 
published  about  this  time  or  a  little  later,  give 
in  some  cases,  nineteen,  and  in  others  twenty- 
five  and  thirty-seven. 

The  arrangement  that  is  universally  in  use  at 
the  present  day  seems  to  have  originated  with  a 
book  published  in  1584  by  a  certain  Andrichomius 
which  had  a  wide  circulation,  being  translated  into 
numerous  languages.  It  was  entitled,  “Jeru¬ 
salem  in  the  Time  of  Christ,”  and  gives  twenty 
Stations  which  correspond  exactly  with  the  first 
twelve  as  we  use  them  now,  but  as  late  as  1799 


90 


there  seems  to  have  been  much  discrepancy  as 
to  the  number. 

A  set  prepared  for  use  in  the  diocese  of  Vi¬ 
enne  in  France  in  that  year  contained  eleven  sta¬ 
tions,  five  of  which — the  Agony,  the  Betrayal,  the 
Scourging,  the  Crowning  with  Thorns,  and  our 
Lord  receiving  the  gall, — do  not  appear  in  the 
modern  arrangement. 

It  was  not  usual  to  place  the  Stations  of  the 
Cross  in  churches  until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  This  custom  originated  amongst  the 
Franciscans.  They  had  for  centuries  been  the 
custodians  of  the  Holy  Places  in  Jerusalem,  and 
now  that  the  pilgrimages  become  impossible  to  so 
many  Christians,  they  w*ere  permitted  by  Pope  In¬ 
nocent  XI,  in  1686,  to  erect  Stations  in  all  their 
churches,  the  same  indulgences  being  attached 
to  them  as  were  to  be  gained  by  an  actual  jour¬ 
ney  to  Jerusalem. 

This  privilege  was  confirmed  by  several  later 
Popes,  and  in  1731  Clement  XII  allowed  the  erec¬ 
tion  of  Stations  in  all  churches,  convents  or  hos¬ 
pitals  provided  it  was  done  by  a  Franciscan 
father  with  the  Bishop’s  sanction.  At  the  same 
time  he  formally  declared  the  number  to  be  four¬ 
teen,  and  arranged  the  subjects  as  they  are  today. 
So  the  Franciscans  who  in  1342  were  given  the 
guardianship  of  the  Via  Sacra  in  Jerusalem,  still 
hold  some  sort  of  right  over  the  representations 


91 


of  the  original  Stations.  There  seems  to  have 
been  some  modification  of  this  rule,  but  the 
Catholic  Encyclopedia  speaks  of  it  as  universally 
in  force  at  present. 

Apropos  of  the  connection  of  the  Franciscans 
with  the  origin  of  the  Stations  a  charming  story 
is  told  of  the  Via  Crucis  in  the  loggia  outside 
the  Franciscan  Church  on  Mount  La  Verna,  where 
St.  Francis  received  the  Stigmata.  The  loggia 
was  built  in  1582,  and  until  that  time  the  Sta¬ 
tions  were  in  the  open  air,  and  regardless  of 
weather,  the  friars  always  made  their  devotions 
before  them  at  certain  times. 

The  tradition  tells  us  that  one  night  a 
frightful  blizzard  was  raging,  and  the  brethren 
growing  faint-hearted,  remained  indoors.  But 
when  they  went  out  on  the  following  morning, 
lo,  the  snow  of  the  pathway  was  marked  with  the 
footprints  of  all  manner  of  beasts  and  birds  that 
had  come  down  from  the  forest  and  made  the 
Way  of  the  Cross  instead  of  the  self-indulgent 
friars.  After  this  rebuke  the  community  never 
failed  to  make  their  Stations,  be  the  cold  never 
so  bitter  or  the  snow  never  so  deep. 

The  historical  foundation  for  many  of  the  Sta¬ 
tions  of  the  Cross,  as  used  at  the  present  day,  is 
very  slight.  There  is  no  warrant  for  our  Lord’s 
successive  falls  beneath  Cross.  Neither  history 
nor  early  tradition  mentions  His  meeting  His 


92 


Blessed  Mother ;  and  the  incident  of  St.  Veronica 
wiping  our  Lord’s  face  with  her  veil,  is  not  heard 
of  until  the  fourteenth  century.  The  order  in 
which  the  Stations  appear  was  arranged  in  com¬ 
paratively  modern  times  by  certain  devout  folk  in 
Flanders,  so  it  has  not  even  the  support  of 
mediaeval  legend  or  tradition. 

These  facts  would  incline  one  to  reject  the  en¬ 
tire  devotion,  were  it  not  for  one  consideration 
which  cannot  be  lost  sight  of,  namely,  that  the 
Stations  of  the  Cross  are  not  intended  to  present 
definite  historical  events.  They  set  forth  a  sym¬ 
bolic  drama  for  the  edification  of  devout  souls. 
The  devotion  is  akin  to  a  mediaeval  miracle 
play  intended  to  teach  certain  lessons,  and  to 
stimulate  devout  souls  to  meditation  on  the  Pas¬ 
sion.  The  purpose  is  not  necessarily  to  display  a 
series  of  historic  happenings.  It  is  not  fact 
which  is  contemplated  for  while  all  sorts  of 
modern  and  unnecessary  legends  have  been  fast¬ 
ened  by  a  false  piety  upon  these  symbolic  scenes, 
no  intelligent  person  in  the  world  pretends  that 
certain  of  the  stations  are  facts  any  more  than 
we  are  expected  to  regard  as  authentic  the  fare¬ 
well  scene  between  our  Lord  and  His  Blessed 
Mother  which  in  the  Oberammergau  Passion 
Play  never  failsto  melt  the  breathlessthousands 
to  tears  and  sobs.  Yet  who  would  wish  to  remove 
from  the  great  Passion  drama  of  the  Bavarian 


93 


peasants  this  tenderest  and  most  moving  of  inci¬ 
dents  ? 

Take,  for  example,  the  Station  of  St.  Veronica. 
The  name  of  the  character  is  derived  from  the 
scene,  and  shows  that  nothing  historical  is  in¬ 
tended.  The  word  Veronica  was  erroneously 
supposed  to  be  formed  of  a  Greek  and  a  Latin 
word,  and  to  mean  a  true  image.  The  reference 
is  to  the  imprint  of  the  Lord’s  face  which  is  rep¬ 
resented  as  having  been  made  upon  the  veil  with 
which  she  wiped  the  blood  and  sweat  from  His 
sacred  brow. 

That  great  lover  of  Christ  and  His  poor,  Henri 
Pereyve,  exemplifies  the  lessons  this  Station 
teaches,  in  his  meditations  on  the  Stations  of  the 
Cross.  He  writes :  “More  happy  than  Veronica, 
whose  trembling  hand  touched  Thee  but  once, 
Christian  charity  is  able,  every  day  and  every  mo¬ 
ment,  to  dry  Thy  tears,  to  wipe  the  sweat  from 
Thy  brow, — the  brow  of  Thy  poor.  Who  will 
teach  us  to  love  Thy  poor  sufficiently,  who  will 
teach  us  to  regard  their  sorrows,  to  reverence 
them  as  the  sacrament  of  Thy  Passion?  Who  will 
teach  us  always  to  see  beneath  their  features, 
disguised  though  they  may  be  by  physical  and 
moral  misery,  the  features  of  Jesus?” 

The  Stations  of  the  Cross  are  themes  for  medi¬ 
tation  as  we  pass  in  symbolic  procession  from 
one  to  another  along  the  Sorrowful  Way  that 


94 


leads  from  the  hall  of  His  condemnation  to  the 
moment  of  His  suffering  and  death. 

The  series  of  prayers,  the  acts  of  worship  and 
of  contrition,  the  tender  description  of  the 
scenes,  the  pleading  cadences  of  the  appointed 
hymns — few  indeed  are  the  hearts  that,  follow¬ 
ing  along  this  way  of  suffering  love,  would  not 
be  stirred  by  this  divine  drama  of  woe  to  a  deeper 
and  more  enduring  devotion  to  Him  who  so  loved 
us  and  gave  Himself  for  us. 


95 


4784  TC  350 

6-15-00  32180  FM 


Princeton 


leolooical  Seminary  Libraries 


012  01218  9041 


